The story of Francis Roy “Frank” Roberts—Australia’s first signed Indigenous Olympian—is heading to Melbourne, carried by the voice of someone who knew him best. Rhoda Roberts AO, cultural leader and veteran theatre-maker, brings My Cousin Frank to Arts Centre Melbourne this July as part of NAIDOC Week, putting a long-overlooked chapter of Australian history back on the national stage.
Frank Roberts, a Widjabul Wia-bal and Githabul man raised on the Cubawee Reserve near Lismore, competed at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics in the welterweight division. Though his Olympic appearance was brief, his fight was anything but. Known as “Honest Frank” inside the ring, he spent a lifetime challenging stereotypes, injustice, and the silence around First Nations stories.
The show is a solo performance, written and performed by Roberts’ cousin, Rhoda, whose reputation as one of Australia’s foremost cultural storytellers brings both depth and authority to the piece. She weaves together research, memory and oral history into a powerful narrative of one family’s endurance—and one man’s determination to rise from the margins to the international stage.
Since its premiere last year in regional New South Wales, My Cousin Frank has travelled from Byron to Lismore and then to a sold-out season at the Adelaide Festival. Now, as it arrives in Melbourne for its first major city season, it marks a fresh chapter in a growing movement to restore First Nations voices to the centre of Australia’s cultural conversation.
Rhoda Roberts has described the creation of the piece as a personal reckoning. The writing process, she said, has been about unearthing the layers of history buried in policy, silence and forgetting—both public and private. For her, the work is about more than retelling her cousin’s story. It’s about reminding the nation that stories like Frank’s were never told in schoolbooks, never plastered on posters, never made into national pride—until now.
The city of Lismore, too, has begun to acknowledge its own connection to Frank’s journey. Roberts recalls how the project transformed the local view of him—from a footnote to a hometown hero. “Now they do see him,” she said. “Cousin Frank has become a warrior, a sportsman, a local hero, and his story is no longer overlooked.”
NAIDOC Week in 2025 carries the theme of strength, vision and legacy—threads that run through every scene of My Cousin Frank. But the show doesn’t wear them like slogans. Instead, it invites the audience into the contradictions and trials of a young man navigating a world that rarely offered him a fair fight.
This is not a sugar-coated celebration. It’s a family’s story told without filters, tracing how policies of removal and erasure shaped generations of Aboriginal Australians. But it is also a tribute—to the quiet persistence of culture, the healing power of storytelling, and to Frank himself, who walked into the Olympic arena with a nation’s history on his shoulders and refused to be forgotten.
Rhoda Roberts’ artistic career spans theatre, festivals, broadcast and large-scale national events, including her role as Head of Indigenous Programming at the Sydney Opera House. She co-founded the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust in 1988 and continues to lead cultural productions that centre Indigenous perspectives with clarity and strength.
Her decision to take this work on tour—next to Wodonga in August and with more stops to come—ensures that Frank’s journey won’t be confined to archives or anniversaries. It will be heard in towns and cities across the country, as part of the ongoing work of memory and justice.
My Cousin Frank runs from 9 to 12 July at Arts Centre Melbourne and is a centrepiece of this year’s NAIDOC Week programming. For many, it will be the first time they hear Frank Roberts’ name. But as Roberts herself says, “now, they do see him.” And they won’t forget him again.
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🎭Rhoda Roberts brings "My Cousin Frank" to Melbourne honouring Australia's 1st Indigenous Olympian.🥊The powerful solo show revives Frank Roberts' 1964 Tokyo Olympics journey & explores First Nations resilience. Runs 9-12 July, NAIDOC Week. #TheIndianSunhttps://t.co/iDOHg3Pmy6
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