The Shallow End had its world premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in February 1997. Doug Lucie's darkly comic attack on society's disintegrating institutions will receive its Australian premiere season at new theatre from March 24.

Lucie bases The Shallow End around the takeover of a conservative Sunday newspaper and its 'makeover' into a racy tabloid. In the face of the inevitable 'downsizing', journalists are confronted with a choice - accept the new editorial policy or expect forced demotion or redundancy.

A media mogul's daughter is getting married at a lavish wedding reception; senior members of his staff are ferried out to the country house that has been hired for the reception. Amid the fun and games it is still business as usual - a columnist hired, a political editor fired, a maverick foreign correspondent announcing that he has made a TV documentary exposing the organisation's shady deals in the Far East.

The wedding festivities are, to put it mildly, 'energetic'. In the meantime, the action behind the scenes exposes what is wrong with much of the media -the debasing of standards, undue concentration of power, lack of consumer choice and the role of the journalist in this brave new world.

The Shallow End is a play for anyone interested in the media - the moguls, the machinations and the power of the press. In a country where Murdoch vs Packer battles are something of a daily ritual, The Shallow End provides a thought provoking view of what might really be going on.

Designed by Kylie Crain, Lighting Design by Kathryn Cooke with Michael Briggs, John Carey, Robin Castles, Tim Dwyer, Melanie Holt, Barry Jenkins, John Keightley, Frank McNamara, Bruce Menzies, Dimitri Psiropoulos, Leigh Rowney, Kim Saville, Daniel Spehar, Peter Thirus, Helen Tonkin and Nick Warnford