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In this episode of Sweet Nell: The Story of Australia’s Rose, we follow Nellie Stewart through one of the most dramatic periods of her life and career. Returning to the stage after the birth of her daughter, Nellie throws herself back into touring comic opera across Australia and New Zealand, discovering a stronger voice, renewed confidence and an audience more devoted than ever.

But success is rarely simple. As Nellie and theatre impresario George Musgrove chase opportunities across London, Australia and America, ill health, financial risk and relentless touring begin to shape their lives behind the curtain. Along the way, we meet the historical Nell Gwynne of Drury Lane—an actress whose story will inspire the role that transforms Nellie’s career and earns her the nickname that will follow her forever: “Sweet Nell.”

From triumphant premieres and international tours to personal loss, earthquakes, theatrical gambles and the complicated partnership between Nellie and Musgrove, this episode reveals the fragile balance between fame and hardship in the golden age of theatre.

It’s a story of reinvention, resilience and the moment when Nellie Stewart becomes not just a star—but a legend.

Recorded on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong Peoples of the Kulin Nation, written and hosted by Ali McGregor. Script editing by Maeve Marsden and musical excerpts by Matthew Floyd Jones.

This podcast was created wth the generosity of The Frank Van Straten Fellowship, supported by ‘The Van Straten and Turley Foundation', with the help and guidance of Claudia Funder at the Australian Performing Arts Collection. Massive thanks also go to Elaine Marriner of Marriner Theatres for the initial and continued inspiration and support.

https://www.alimcgregor.com/nellie

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In this deeply personal episode, I trace Nellie Stewart’s return to Australia in 1893 - not as the adored “Rose of Australia,” but as a new mother travelling incognito across the world with her six-week-old baby. From triumph and tragedy at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre to a gruelling 45-day voyage aboard the SS Doric, this chapter reveals a woman balancing ambition, secrecy, love and survival.

As I uncover a long-forgotten shipboard journal and search in vain for her daughter’s birth certificate, the distance between performer and private woman narrows. Alone on the high seas, Nellie’s story becomes one of resilience, reinvention and the cost of returning to the stage when everything has changed

Recorded on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong Peoples of the Kulin Nation, written and hosted by Ali McGregor. Script editing by Maeve Marsden and musical excerpts by Matthew Floyd Jones.

This podcast was created wth the generosity of The Frank Van Straten Fellowship, supported by ‘The Van Straten and Turley Foundation', with the help and guidance of Claudia Funder at the Australian Performing Arts Collection. Massive thanks also go to Elaine Marriner of Marriner Theatres for the initial and continued inspiration and support.

https://www.alimcgregor.com/nellie

Send a text

A secret marriage, a defiant love affair, and a symbol that would become legend. In Episode Three of Sweet Nell, Ali McGregor follows Nellie Stewart through heartbreak and resolve as she refuses a respectable life in favour of the stage and the man she cannot live without. From the glittering triumph of The Mikado and the opening of Melbourne’s Princess Theatre to a bracelet forged from melted sovereigns and worn as a private declaration of devotion, this episode explores how love, ambition and sacrifice became inseparable in Nellie’s life. It is a story of artistic authority, quiet rebellion, and a woman shaping both her public image and her private truth at the height of her power

Recorded on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong Peoples of the Kulin Nation, written and hosted by Ali McGregor. Script editing by Maeve Marsden and musical excerpts by Matthew Floyd Jones.

'The Sun Whose Rays' (Mikado) & 'I am Weary of the Sorrows' - sung by Ali McGregor.

This podcast was created wth the generosity of The Frank Van Straten Fellowship, supported by ‘The Van Straten and Turley Foundation', with the help and guidance of Claudia Funder at the Australian Performing Arts Collection. Massive thanks also go to Elaine Marriner of Marriner Theatres for the initial and continued inspiration and support.

https://www.alimcgregor.com/nellie

Send a text

Melbourne in the late 1870s is loud, glittering and hungry for spectacle, and Nellie Stewart is rising with it. In Episode Two of Sweet Nell, Ali McGregor follows Nellie from backstage sewing tables to centre stage, as Christmas pantomimes, comic opera and burlesque turn a gifted teenager into one of Australia’s first true theatrical celebrities. Alongside the chaos of gaslit theatres and runaway success, we meet the power brokers of the age, including the formidable George Coppin and the ambitious George Musgrove, and watch as fame, desire and expectation begin to collide. This episode charts the exhilaration of stardom, the cost of being watched, and the moment when Nellie makes a choice that will change the course of her life forever

Recorded on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong Peoples of the Kulin Nation, written and hosted by Ali McGregor. Script editing by Maeve Marsden and musical excerpts by Matthew Floyd Jones.

This podcast was created wth the generosity of The Frank Van Straten Fellowship, supported by ‘The Van Straten and Turley Foundation', with the help and guidance of Claudia Funder at the Australian Performing Arts Collection. Massive thanks also go to Elaine Marriner of Marriner Theatres for the initial and continued inspiration and support.

https://www.alimcgregor.com/nellie

Send a text

A woman stands on the deck of a steamship in 1893, a baby in her arms and forty-five days of ocean ahead. In this opening episode of Sweet Nell, performer Ali McGregor traces the journey of Eleanor “Nellie” Stewart back through generations of performers, beginning not with fame, but with travel, motherhood, reinvention, and risk.

From the crowded decks of the SS Doric to the gaslit theatres of colonial Hobart, Sydney and Melbourne, Episode One lays the foundations of a theatrical dynasty and a nation’s live performance culture. It is a story of women who made art against the odds, of forgotten labour and quiet resilience, and of how the echoes of the past still shape Australian theatre today.

Recorded live during a presentation for Theatre Heritage Australia at the Showroom, Arts Centre Melbourne.

Edited by Ali McGregor, with the most basic setup. All music in this episode played by Matthew Flloyd Jones, except the final song, sung live by Ali McGregor, accompanied by Zachary Hamilton-Russell and singers Eliza Bennetts O'Connor, Samantha Anderson-Mayes, Jack Jordan & Nicholas Shepherd.

Recorded on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong Peoples of the Kulin Nation written and hosted by Ali McGregor. Script editing by Maeve Marsden and musical excerpts by Matthew Floyd Jones.

This podcast was created wth the generosity of The Frank Van Straten Fellowship supported by ‘The Van Straten and Turley Foundation' with the help and guidance of Claudia Funder at the Australian Performing Arts Collection. Massive thanks also go to Elaine Marriner of Marriner Theatres for the initial and continued inspiration and support.

https://www.alimcgregor.com/nellie