In Melbourne's St Kilda, as World War I begins, Anton, a German immigrant fulfils his dream of creating the most beautiful steam driven 'riding gallery'—a merry go round—in the world. Evelyn, who has just moved to the city befriends local boy Rory, but the war, and anti-German sentiment, soon takes its toll on the children, Anton, their families, and the riding gallery itself.
Based on true events, this is a cleverly structured, multiple point-of-view story, including poems created from contemporaneous newspaper headlines, and Sally Murphy at her finest form.