Phillip Edmiston, who worked alongside Peter Scriven at the Marionette Theatre of Australia, went on to mount in 1977 a lavish marionette production of "The Grand Adventure" under the umbrella of his own company, Theatrestrings. With 127 marionettes, the A$120,000 production opened in Nambour in the Civic Hall on 28 May 1977 and subsequently toured to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The musical was composed by Eric Gross with book and lyrics by Hal Saunders. The story broadly told of Captain James Cook's South Sea Island voyage with botanist Joseph Banks on HMS "Endeavour". Edmiston went on to tour Queensland throughout the 1980s and 1990s with numerous productions with his new company Queensland Marionette Theatre.