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David Williamson reveals his own Writers’ Week ‘cancellation’ moment
In 1985, the playwright narrowly avoided cancellation of one of his plays, after government threats to pull funding. Censoring writers is “always dangerous territory”, he says.
27 Jan 2026
David Williamson once almost had a play cancelled because the government subsidising it didn’t like its content, and the renowned dramatist says the implosion of Adelaide Festival’s board is a reminder for arts directors to stand firm against attempted censorship.
Despite the crises engulfing boards from Creative Australia to Melbourne Symphony Orchestra since 2023, as their programming or performers were seen to take a side in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, an arts directorship is still the ultimate signifier of status for the characters in Williamson’s new play, The Social Ladder.
David Williamson: “I’m still fascinated by the social dance we have to do through life, balancing our self-interest with our social standing.” Louie Douvis
They remain so in real life despite those recent “bumps”, said the chronicler of suburban life who made his name with 1971 classics The Removalists and Don’s Party,
In The Social Ladder, Williamson’s “50-somethingth” staged work, Katie is a Sydneysider from a working-class family but she’s on the make.
“She feels she has talents that deserve to be noticed and she decides those talents are going to be noticed by the Mallorys, who sit unchallenged on the highest rung of the city’s social ladder,” Williamson told The Australian Financial Review.
The Melbourne playwright fled Sydney after 17 years living there, in 1996 – he first satirised its status obsession in 1987’s Emerald City, also giving it its nickname – but is back from Noosa to tweak his new play during previews ahead of Wednesday’s opening night.
It’s no coincidence that in The Social Ladder, the power of Catherine and Charles Mallory is encoded by their sway over a (fictional) board of the Art Gallery of NSW. Katie covets a seat so much she invites the couple to dinner and hires an expensively trendy contemporary painting for her wall as part of an increasingly desperate bid to impress.
“There’s been a few bumps lately, but people with money will still want to do a few things to consolidate their social standing,” says Williamson, who began writing the play 18 months ago.
“One is to amass an art collection, another is to get yourself on the board of a prestigious arts company, to show you’re not just a money-maker but a cultured human being.”
Williamson laments that many arts boards are now “stacked with billionaires” more than artists. The absence of artists arguably contributed to the Adelaide Festival board’s fateful decision to take the hint from their major funder – South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas – that anti-Zionist academic Randa Abdel-Fattah should be uninvited from its Writers’ Week, triggering an author boycott that sank the event.
“I’ve met [Abdel-Fattah] a couple of times, and found her very personable, with strong views that she is entitled to have,” the 83-year-old said.
“Censoring writers has always been dangerous territory.”
Williamson experienced the problem directly in 1985, when he was a director of Sydney Theatre Company which was about to produce his play Sons of Cain. The script skewered the behaviour of then-sitting NSW Labor MP Rex Jackson over bribes he’d allegedly taken to release prisoners early while corrective services minister.
“I was threatened with libel, and there were hints we’d lose our state government funding if the board didn’t pull my play,” he recalled.
A majority vote to do so was denied by one director, lawyer Tony Scott.
“I remember he told the meeting that if we cave in to threats to our funding, we’re no better than those ministries of culture behind the Iron Curtain, where politicians dictate the program. So we held firm, it turned out to be true and [Jackson] went to jail.”
Despite its high drama, the collapse of Adelaide Writers’ Week won’t form the template for a future Williamson play.
“I’m getting too old for that sort of thing. Social psychology has been an interest of mine since I studied it at Melbourne Uni, and that’s my focus now,” said Williamson, who announced retirements in 2005 and 2019 amid heart rhythm problems but says medical advances since have “re-energised” him.
“I’m still fascinated by the social dance we have to do through life, balancing our self-interest with our social standing – because nobody wants to be labelled a social climber – and our tendency not to want to hurt other people.
“It’s a juggle of great complexity, and I’ll keep writing about it until they stop coming.”
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Michael Bailey writes on arts and culture, and edits Weekend Fin. He is a former editor of the Financial Review Rich List. He is based in Sydney. Connect with Michael on Twitter.Email Michael at m.bailey@nine.com.au
