| The King Who Wouldn't | |
| Orig Lang: | English |
The King Who Wouldn't is a 1952 Australian play by Oriel Gray. [1]
It was highly commended in a Journalists’ Club competition for best new Australian play of 1956 (won by The Shifting Heart). The play was also known as Royal Tour.[2]
Leslie Rees called it "well ahead of its time... a thinly veiled satire on contemporary royalty... At the time this comedy appeared unplayable, or at least it was unlikely any group would play it; it might have collected production honours had it been written a few years later in the age of permissiveness or down-with-the-Establishment."[3]
The play was given a reading at Sydney's Independent Theatre in 1965.[4]
The play also may have a connection with an early revue of Gray's, Marx of Time.[5]