Art by committee

Australia, 1788. A transport ship arrives in Port Jackson (later Sydney harbour) carrying hundreds of convicts and a detachment of English officers under orders to guard the prisoners and to implant the roots of a well-ordered colony. These facts form the basis of Our Country’s Good, which was created in 1988 by Timberlake Wertenbaker in collaboration with Max Stafford-Clark’s Joint Stock company. Stafford-Clark’s method is to prepare a script using committees of actors under the supervision of a writer and the invariable result is a show that prizes the concerns of players over those of play-goers. The director Nadia Fall has revived this script with lavish efficiency.

We begin with the ship disgorging its contents on to the Australian shore. Everyone looks remarkably spruce after eight months at sea. The convicts wear attractively tailored boho smocks in a palette of creams, soft browns and dove-greys. The English officers sport beautifully pressed scarlet tunics and snow-white breeches apparently delivered that morning by a world-class dry-cleaning firm.