It toured extensively throughout Australia between 1948–1949 and was threatened with closure by the New South Wales Chief Secretary's Office for obscenity.
It was first produced by Doris Fitton and Sydney's Independent Theatre company on 14 October 1948, and advertised as an "army comedy documentary".
[5] The words that were the subject of the ban gradually reappeared; no legal action was ever taken, though rewrites were demanded in different states.
[6] At the end of its record six-month run in Melbourne, the production transferred to Adelaide, then returned to Sydney at The Tatler.
Elliott did not foresee that shortly after this, the genre of the theatre of the absurd would be established as a 'legitimate' dramatic form where plot and the delineation of character are less important than the insight offered into the implicit drama of most human interactions.