Review: OUR COUNTRY'S GOOD, Lyric Hammersmith

Is it serendipity or a testament to good writing? A day after the government mandate two thousand prisoners to enjoy an early release a new production of Our Country’s Good premieres: a play about deported British convicts forging a new life in newly colonised Australia couldn’t be timelier.

I suspect director Rachel O’ Riordan had a scowling eye on the political sphere when reviving Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Olivier winning 1988 modern classic. The plucky band of criminals and their red clocked guards are building a new civilisation. In a way we are too, a newly crowned Labour government offers potential for change. How should we build our community?

Trust theatre to go into bat for itself and make the case for its own importance. Second Lieutenant Ralph, one of Royal Marine, produces a play starring the convicts to the chagrin of the other narrow-minded marines. For him it “could change the nature of society” and serve as the foundation stone of their rag tag community. To his critics it risks usurping the social hierarchy.

The soul-piercing power of performance is only the first building block. For the convicts it offers an escape from the drudgery of their downtrodden lives. It becomes liberation from the self, from oppressive gender roles, from the brutal justice of colonial politics where stealing food to survive can get you hanged.   

The ideas tango in Gary McCann’s sparse desert set, a few barren trees stick up from the ground like bony fingers. Sultry light burns from above. O’Riordan’s production is playfully anachronistic, characters costumed in tracksuits and tricorns, a suggestion that those swirling ideas can find grounding in 2024 as much as 1780.

Criticism of the colonialism feels particularly emphasised: those already skeletal trees vanish from the second act. Empty cans of Fosters and crisp packets lie strewn in their place. It’s blunt but effective. There’s an acrid stench of hypocrisy, naval gazing political idealism dissipates into pollution and destruction.

But a missing human touch is needed to counterbalance the heavy concepts. The tangled romances between the marines and convicts feel underwritten and overwrought through uncalibrated performances. As individuals the characters lack gravity, they are only ever parts to the whole. It’s why the ensemble sequences really fizzle. Squabbles during rehearsals flecked with self-conscious jabs at pretentious theatre culture effortlessly blossom into the wider politics.

You can imagine how well that went down with the thesp-populated press night. But it’s not enough to lift the academic heft of Wertenbaker’s script. There’s a reason Our Country’s Good found its way onto the A-Level syllabus.

Our Country’s Good plays at Lyric Hammersmith until 5 October

Photo Credits: Marc Brenner