Our Country's Good and The Recruiting Officer: Two BBC Radio full-cast dramatisations

A BBC Radio double bill of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s award-winning drama about a group of 18th-century Australian convicts and their attempts to stage a play, plus the Restoration comedy that the prisoners put on

Australia, 1789: A young lieutenant attempts to direct a cast of convicts in the first play ever to be staged in the country.

But one of his actors is about to be hanged...

Adapted from Thomas Keneally’s novel The Playmaker, Our Country’s Good tells the true story of the convicts and Marines sent to Australia as part of the first penal colony. An eloquent argument for the redemptive power of theatre, Wertenbaker’s classic drama celebrates the beauty of language – in the slang of the criminal classes and the poetry of the play – and at the same time examines how it is used as an instrument of power.

In The Recruiting Officer, we hear the play that the prisoners staged. George Farquhar’s popular Restoration comedy is set in Shrewsbury during the War of the Spanish Succession, where wives are recruited while soldiers are wooed. During a lull in the fighting, the womanising Captain Plume comes to town to seduce soldiers into the army, and – if possible – recruit Silvia into marriage.

These two captivating radio dramas star many of the same cast, including Paul Higgins, Ralph Ineson, Kate Fleetwood, Jonathan Forbes and Adjoa Andoh.

Our Country’s Good Captain Arthur Philip – Nicholas Le Prevost Major Robbie Ross – Stuart McQuarrie Captain David Collins – Paul Moriarty Captain Watkin Tench – Adam Billington Captain Campbell – James Lailey 2nd Lieutenant Ralph Clark – Paul Higgins Reverend Johnson – Simon Bubb Midshipman Harry Brewer – Rikki Lawton Mary Brenham – Francine Chamberlain Robert Sideway – Adam James John Wisehammer – Elliot Levey Liz Morden – Kate Fleetwood Dabby Bryant – Alex Tregear John Arscott – Ralph Ineson Ketch Freeman – Jonathan Forbes Duckling Smith – Adjoa Andoh

Produced and directed by Sally Avens Our Country’s Good © Timberlake Wertenbaker, 1988, 1989, 1999, 2015 Based on the novel The Playmaker by Thomas Keneally © 1978 The Serpentine Publishing Company Pty, published by Hodder & Stoughton and Sceptre Timberlake Wertenbaker has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work All rights reserved

The Recruiting Officer Captain Plume – Paul Higgins Silvia – Lisa Dillon Sergeant Kite – Ralph Ineson Mr Worthy – Adam James Melinda – Kate Fleetwood Captain Brazen – Elliot Levey Rose – Alex Tregear Bullock – Simon Bubb Justice Balance – Jonathan Forbes Lucy – Adjoa Andoh Appletree – James Lailey Pearman – Adam Billington Bridewell– Rikki Lawton Justice Scale – Paul Moriaty Justice Scruple – Gerard McDermott

Produced and directed by Jessica Dromgoole The Recruiting Officer by George Farquhar originally published in 1706

© 2020 BBC Digital Audio (Lydbog): 9781529127768

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Lydbog: 20. august 2020