REVIEW: Our Country's Good, The Haymarket (From Basingstoke Gazette)

REVIEW: Our Country's Good, The Haymarket

2:37pm Thursday 2nd February 2012 in Theatre By Joanne Mace

HOW brilliant it was to watch the cast of this superb adaptation, produced by the Original Theatre Company in association with Anvil Arts, bring Timberlake Wertenbaker’s play to life on the stage of The Haymarket.

It surely sent its audiences home contemplating its events, and thinking in general, which is the most that can be asked of any production.

Our Country’s Good concerns a group of transported convicts who, under the direction of the passionate second lieutenant Ralph Clark (the exceptional Christopher Harper), stage a play to provide entertainment for the entire colony. This is instead of their usual source of supposed entertainment, watching a hanging.

The end result of the experiment is a testament to the transformative and redemptive power of art, and a pondering of the nature of humanity.

An outstanding cast of 11, who made it seem that there were many more people on stage because of their industrious playing of multiple roles, sank their teeth into the material’s great characters and gave us plenty to laugh at and to ponder.

The opening a cappella singing set the scene beautifully for what was to follow, given its melancholic edge, and there were nuggets to savour dotted throughout the entire running time, including brief mentions of the crimes which caused these people to be sent to New South Wales – a sea journey of eight months.

One had stolen a sheep and, even worse, an 83-year-old had been transported for stealing just a biscuit. She’d hanged herself rather than suffer said punishment.

Those in charge refused to see the convicts as people who’d been driven to their crimes by poverty and desperation – “how could a whore play Lady Jane?” – and Lt Clark persevered, converted by his witnessing one young woman, Mary Brenham (a perfect Emily Bowker), flourish as she read aloud the play’s text.

Tragedy came courtesy of the passionate Philip Whitchurch’s ill-fated Harry, but the script’s inherent humour, well mined by all, ensured we stayed hopeful.

Emma Gregory, Rachel Donovan and Jenny Ogilvie were vivacious and a complete life force as the female convicts, while Jack Lord was wonderful as Robert Sideway, full of acting ideas – all supposedly stolen from his watching Mr Garrick on the London stage! Aden Gillen added both gravitas as the captain and a delightful quirkiness as John Wisehammer.

Special mention for the magnificent Adam Best, who was the barbaric and sadistic Scot Major Ross one moment, and the tragic, despised Irish hangman Ketch Freeman the next, and to the immortal line, “People who cannot pay attention should not go to the theatre.”

I think we can all say Amen to that.