Wed by the Wayside

Alana Valentine’s mother, Janice, was remarried in 1969 at the Wayside Chapel, run by the charismatic and controversial minister Ted Noffs and his wife Margaret. Many years after her mother died, Alana found the wedding photo, and the longing to speak to her mother about that day drove her to seek out others who had begun new chapters of their lives at Wayside.

What Alana found was a remarkable group of people, whose stories are told here with kaleidoscopic effect. Wayside is a uniquely Australian institution where people have been welcomed for decades in spite of social taboos around race, class, religion and sexuality. Over the years, the likes of Ita Buttrose, Andy Gibb and Jane Powell have been married there, and the Chapel has been supported by famous ambassadors such as David Wenham, Claudia Karvan and Leah Purcell.

Told with grace and insight by one of Australia’s most acclaimed playwrights, Wed by the Wayside is a deeply personal quest and a vibrant chronicle that reshapes our understanding of this country’s social history.