035 – Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker
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It is 1789 in the newly formed settlement at Botany Bay in Australia. The Royal Marines are struggling to feed themselves and the community of convicts that they have transported from England. Three men are about to be hanged for stealing food. An officer flippantly suggests that hanging is the convicts’ favourite form of entertainment – “it’s their theatre”. The enlightened Governor of the colony is struck by another idea: that they might put on a real play to distract and entertain the imprisoned population, much against the view of many of his officers who think that any such culture would be wasted on the population of convicts and whores.
This unlikely story of a theatre production being put on by convicts in the new-found colony in New South Wales is true, for a group of those who were transported in what was known as the First Fleet to Australia did in fact put on a performance of George Farquhar’s Restoration Comedy The Recruiting Officer in honour of King George III’s birthday in June 1789. Almost exactly 200 years later playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker was commissioned by the Royal Court Theatre to adapt the story of this extraordinary theatrical enterprise into a new play that could run alongside their revival of The Recruiting Officer. Wertenbaker’s play Our Country’s Good premiered at the Royal Court in 1988, going on to win the Olivier Play of the Year award that year.
The play is now a common set text for Theatre and English Literature studies at both secondary and university level. It’s a vivid portrait of the volatile mix of the two sections that make up the new colony – the officers and the convicts. In the contrasts between the two, and in the parallels drawn with The Recruiting Officer as the convicts rehearse the play-within-play, the play raises timeless questions about what makes for a country’s good, or otherwise: the principles of justice and punishment; the stultifying constraints of class prejudice; the value and availability of education or culture, particularly the redemptive potential of theatre itself.
There is of course an obvious logic in our choosing Our Country’s Good to follow fresh on the heels of our last episode devoted to The Recruiting Officer, and the logic extends naturally to our inviting back our expert guest from that episode, director Matt Bereford. In fact, following his recent production of The Recruiting Officer at the Teddington Theatre Club, Matt will return to direct Our Country’s Good at the same theatre in 2022.
Matt Beresford
Matt Beresford is a director, speaker, trainer and leadership coach. He spent fifteen years working in business, before re-training as a Theatre Director at RADA, followed by an MA at St. Mary’s, University of London. He has directed a series of plays on the London fringe, as well as a number of productions for the amateur stage, including a production of The Recruiting Officer for Teddington Theatre. Matt has been invited to direct a new production of Our Country’s Good at the same theatre in 2022.
He also continues to combine his business and theatre experience to coach teams and senior executives on communication skills and leadership and is passionate about exploring the parallels between theatre directing and creative leadership in business.
Recommended Play
Matt recommended Handbagged by Moira Buffini.
The Footnotes to our episode on Our Country’s Good include observations on the parallels with the play-within-the-play, The Recruiting Officer.
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071 – Clyde’s, by Lynn Nottage
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Lynn Nottage’s play Clyde’s is set in a truck-stop diner on the outskirts of Reading, Pennsylvania. This is no ordinary diner though, because the short-order cooks that make the sandwiches that the diner is famous for are all ex-cons. The eponymous proprietor, Clyde, has not offered these characters a second chance out of the softness of her heart, but they discover some unexpected hope for their futures in their communal sufferings and support.
Lynn Nottage has won the Pulitzer Prize for drama twice, and as we record this episode the European premiere of Clyde’s is on stage at the Donmar Warehouse in London. I am delighted to be joined by the show’s director Lynette Linton, who also directed Nottage’s last play Sweat at the same theatre in 2018.
070 – King Lear, by William Shakespeare
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The poet Percy Shelley called King Lear “the most perfect specimen of the dramatic art existing in the world”. It is a prodigious play in every sense. There are ten major roles, it has multiple significant plot lines, an elemental stormy setting, intense domestic conflict, and acts of war and violence which roll on with a propulsive tragic energy and conjure a challenging philosophical vision.
As we record this episode a new production directed by and starring Sir Kenneth Branagh arrives in London’s West End.
I am very pleased to be joined in this episode by Paul Prescott, who is an academic, writer and theatre practitioner specialising in Shakespearean drama.
069 – A View from the Bridge, by Arthur Miller
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Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge tells the tragic story of Eddie Carbone, a longshoreman who works on the docks under Brooklyn Bridge. Eddie lives with his wife Beatrice and 17-year old niece, Catherine, whom they have cared for since she was a child. But Catherine is no longer a child, and her natural desire to pursue her own life will tragically rupture the lives of this family and the close-knit immigrant community of Red Hook.
As we record this episode a new production of A View from the Bridge is touring the UK, and I’m delighted to talk with its director, Holly Race Roughan, about this powerful play.
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