Colonial Experience

Colonial Experience is a 1868 Australian stage play by Walter Cooper. It was Cooper's first play and the only one known to have survived in script form.

According to academic Richard Fotheringham the term "colonial experience" was originally a requirement for farm labour stipulated in advertisements; but by the 1860s it had become associated ironically with young well-bred Englishmen coming to Australasia and going bush to learn self-reliance and useful skills. Often they were the sons of the absentee owners of grazing properties, finding out at first hand about the nature of their family's investments."

The original production was "a great success". According to the Sydney Morning Herald this "has shown the playgoing public that the talent necessary to the production of a good play is not confined to the mother country and a number of gentlemen, anxious to recognise Mr. Cooper's ability, have tendered him a benefit."

Sydney Punch said "his comedy bears abundant evidence of his ability to hit off the more stirring features of these characteristics with ease and dramatic wit and effect. The dialogue is effective throughout, and the interest never flags. There is nothing extravagant or improbable in the piece, and the modesty of nature is in no way violated."

Cooper appeared in a production.

Cooper followed the play later that year with another comedy The New Crime.

Premise
Matthew Grudge, a rich usurer, has the will of his deceased brother which gives the money to a nephew. Grudge wants the money to go to a niece so she can marry his own son, so Grudge cancels the will. However Grudge's clerk, Peter Shrivel, has a duplicate.

Revival
The play was published by Currency Press in 1979. Reviewing the published edition, Leonard Radic of The Age called it "a lively piece." The play was presented by the New Theatre in Sydney in early 1981. The Sun Herald called it "a beautiful old fashioned farce."