Out of Joint and Octagon launch Our Country’s Good in Bolton, 3 September

A new production of Our Country’s Good is coming to Bolton in September.

Out of Joint artistic director Max Stafford-Clark will direct the revival of Timberlake Wertenbaker‘s
Olivier Award-winning play, having staged the premiere production of
the work at the Royal Court when he helmed the Sloan Square venue in
1988.

The new production, which is co-produced by Out of Joint, Karl Sydow and the Octagon Theatre, will launch from the Bolton venue on 3 September 2012.

Our Country’s Good
will then open in Birmingham on 26 September (previews from 25
September) before travelling to Aberystwyth, Cheltenham, Southampton,
Oxford, The Hague, Watford, Leeds and Cambridge.

The production will run at the new St James Theatre from 30 January
to 9 March 2013. The production features Damola Adelaja, Helen
Bradbury, Laura Dos Santos, John Hollingworth and Lisa Kerr.

Having originally been commissioned to write a play to compliment a revival of The Recruiting Officer, Wertenbaker’s play depicts true events and is based on Thomas Keneally’s best selling novel The Playmaker.

The piece is set in Australia in 1789 and tells the story of a young
lieutenant who is given the task of directing a cast of dispirited
transported murderers and thieves in George Farquhar’s 1706 play.

But with growing suspicion from his fellow officers, just two copies
of the script, his leading lady facing the gallows, and an
uncontrollable passion for one of his convict players, Ralph’s – and
Australia’s – first theatre production is in trouble from the start.