The landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula, at what was named Anzac Cove, was an heroic effort. It became regarded by Australians as the event which led to Australia’s ‘coming of age’.

But its commemorative day, 25 April, was to become synonymous with the glorification of war and public drunkenness.

The Australians experienced huge casualties in the campaign’s first 24 hours, losing 2,000 men killed or wounded of the 16,000 men who had been landed.

Indeed, the entire eight-month Gallipoli campaign was disastrous, the death toll including 8,709 Australians and 2,721 New Zealanders.

The exception to the failed invasion was the storied withdrawal of all troops in the dead of night, as capable an undertaking as the campaign has been catastrophic.

News of the landing at Gallipoli made such a profound impact on Australia and New Zealand that 25 April soon became the day on which they remembered the sacrifice of those who had died.

It has also been adopted in Papua New Guinea to pay tribute to its own ex-soldiers and the foreign troops who served there.

Initially Seymour’s play was rejected by the board of the Adelaide Festival of Arts as too controversial.

Only after much harrowing debate did it made its debut in July 1960 - as an amateur production of the Adelaide Theatre Group. The play’s director and others involved in the production received death threats.

Its first professional season began in April 1961 at the Palace Theatre in Sydney. Here the death threats were aimed at Seymour.

However The One Day of the Year was to become so popular with theatre goers, its critics were largely silenced. The play has appeared regularly on Australian theatre stages since.

It was also quickly adapted for television, being broadcast by Channel 7 in Sydney in June 1962.

The One Day of the Year has become an Australian institution. The death threats have stopped but the beer drinking continues.