Sweet Nell: The Story of Australia's Rose
Sweet Nell: The Story of Australia’s Rose is a 6-part, richly told narrative podcast about fame, forgetting, and the women who built Australian theatre long before their stories were written out of it.
Hosted by acclaimed performer and producer Ali McGregor, the series traces the extraordinary life of Eleanor “Nellie” Stewart - the most celebrated stage star of 19th-century Australia. Sweet Nell was adored, scrutinised, scandalised, and mythologised in her own lifetime, yet today her name has all but vanished from public memory.
Each episode blends immersive storytelling, archival research, and personal reflection, following Nellie from gaslit pantomimes and grand opera houses to international tours, secret marriages, artistic reinvention, and enduring love. Along the way, we meet the formidable women who came before her, the theatre dynasties that shaped a nation’s cultural life, and the precarious realities of making art while navigating class, motherhood, and public expectation.
The series opens at sea in 1893, with Nellie travelling alone with her baby, poised between past and future, fame and anonymity, an image that echoes through generations of artists, including the host herself.
Sweet Nell is not just a biography. It is an exploration of legacy, adaptation, and why some stories are remembered while others quietly disappear. Across six episodes, this podcast asks a simple question with far-reaching consequences: who decides what, and who we keep?
Sweet Nell: The Story of Australia's Rose
Episode 1: Eleanor
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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