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‘Our Country’s Good’ – Timberlake Wertenbaker’s modern classic about convicts putting on a production of Farquhar’s ‘The Recruiting Officer’ in an Australian penal colony – feels like one of those shows that’s permanently playing somewhere. This touring production by Ramps on the Moon, an inclusive company where at least 50 percent of the actors are D/deaf and/or disabled, breathes fresh life into it.
Wertenbaker’s story goes like clockwork. It makes serious points about justice, brutality and privilege, but is fundamentally about the human capacity for change – with the theatre performing both a literal and metaphorical transformative function. There’s also plenty of silly, affectionate humour in sending up the art form, from calamitous rehearsals to overblown egos.
What you notice here, however, is how concerned the play also is with language and communication. Fiona Buffini’s production is fully integrated, with British Sign Language part of every scene: sometimes a character signs as well as speaking for themselves, sometimes they are translated by another performer. This can highlight the distances between the individuals in the play, making you simply more aware of the many barriers to understanding within the story: the chasms formed by class, illiteracy, cultural capital. But the convicts have their own linguistic identity or even resistance too: one speaks in a vibrant but obscure stream of Cockney slang; silence can be used as a weapon.
Throughout the play, there’s a thawing in hostilities. Officers and convicts begin to recognise their shared humanity, to reach across the divides. Ramps on the Moon’s effective, creative approach to making this show fully accessible adds to the potency of this.
The production has its flaws. The pace is somewhat slow, which can leave Wertenbaker’s simple but often unsubtly expositional storytelling style looking a bit obvious and overexposed. The acting quality is uneven; most problematically, there’s zero chemistry between the rather hammy Tim Pritchett as the play-directing officer Ralph and the young convict he falls for, Mary, played by Sapphire Joy. Given she has a just gorgeously tender scene with a rival for her affections (Tom Dowze, very good as Wisehammer), her suddenly falling for Ralph feels all wrong.
Joy makes for a beautifully guileless, ethereal Mary, however, and there are also several strong comic performances: Gbemisola Ikumelo is imposingly fierce but also deadpan hilarious as a proud, tough female prisoner; Alex Nowack has a fine time as an absurdly over-the-top wannabe thesp, channelling Garrick.
Despite all the hardships suffered by the convicts, ‘Our Country’s Good’ ends on a plucky note of determination that the show must go on. And this production itself makes a strong case for continuing to revisit Wertenbaker’s perennially popular play.