The Torrents

The Torrents is a 1955 Australian play by Oriel Gray, set in the late 19th century, about the arrival of a female journalist in an all-male newspaper office, and an attempt to develop irrigation-based agriculture in a former gold mining town.

In 1955 it was voted best play that year by the Playwrights' Advisory Board, alongside Ray Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll,[1][2][3][4] winning a prize of £100 for its author.

[2][7][8][9] The gold is running out,[2][8][9] and a young engineer suggests developing agriculture, supported by irrigation, as an alternative.

[12][13] The cast included John Cooper, Beverley Harte and Lionel Mann, and it was produced by Robert Findlay.

Milford, Kevin Brennan as the editor, Ben Gabriel as the son, and Keith Buckley as the young engineer.