Based on The Playmaker by Thomas Keneally
Director Anna Girvan / Designer Anna Reid / Lighting Designer Chris Swain / Composer & Sound Designer Keegan Curran / Fight Director Kaitlin Howard / Assistant Director Alison Cowling
Cast:
Duckling Smith/Captain Jemmy Campbell Sasha Frost
Liz Morden/Captain Watkin Tench Kim Heron
Robert Sideway/Captain David Collins Danann McAleer
Black Caesar/Midshipman Harry Brewer/Lieutenant Will Dawes Charleen Qwaye
John Wisehammer/Captain Arthur Phillip Luca Thompson
Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark Joseph Tweedale
Reverend Johnson/Mary Brenham/Meg Long Paksie Vernon
Major Robbie Ross/Ketch Freeman/John Arscott Dan Wheeler
Dabby Bryant/ Second Lieutenant William Faddy Heather Williams
Read our Factory Company Season casting announcement
PLUS! Visit our Factory Company Season page for backstage peeks at the productions, including an interview with Anna Girvan and an account of the Company’s visit to HMP Dartmoor.
The true story of the first convict colony in Australia, Our Country’s Good is fearlessly bold and vibrantly theatrical. A play which cunningly redresses ideas about the morality of crime and punishment.
We are talking about criminals, often hardened criminals. They have a habit of vice and crime. Many criminals seem to have been born that way. It is in their nature.
Captain Phillip believes that it is his Officers’ duty to rehabilitate convicts rather than continually punish them for their criminal past. He commissions a young and opportunistic Second Lieutenant, Ralph Clark, to stage a theatre production performed by the inmates. Battling ridicule and the threat of hanging, Ralph and the actors discover the lives they could have led if society had cast them in different roles.
Witty and thought-provoking, Wertenbaker’s masterpiece questions the meaning of ‘civilised’ society as we know it and who has the right to determine and shape its future.
Anna Girvan trained in Bristol and honed her craft at Tobacco Factory Theatres. She has since gone on to work at the RSC and the National Theatre, most recently working as Staff Director to Patrick Marber on
Exit the King.
Our Country’s Good and A Midsummer Night’s Dream are part of the second Factory Company season at Tobacco Factory Theatres.
- RUNNING TIMEApprox. 2hrs 45mins (inc. interval)
- TICKETSFrom £12 (limited availability). Please select Buy Tickets for more details.
- VENUEFactory Theatre
