The National revives modern classic Our Country's Good

Michael Coveney, WhatsOnStage

★★★★

"It's amazing how Timberlake Wertenbaker's simple, beautifully constructed 1988 play about a colony of 18th century English convicts rehearsing a Restoration comedy in Sydney Cove, New South Wales – George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer– resonates metaphorically in different ways in each decade."

"beautifully designed by Peter McKintosh and underpinned by the yearning, folksy music and vocalised commentary of Cerys Matthews"

"Constructed in carefully controlled blocks of action, here made fluent in an overriding debate about what might a play achieve, whose lives might it change, Our Country's Good expands into a delightful and resonant theatrical pageant of issues around the creative instinct, national identity"

Michael Billington, The Guardian

★★★★

"Nadia Fall‘s version is richly justified by its epic sweep, heightened emphasis on colonisation and the sheer quality of the acting."

"there is fine work from Ashley McGuire as a rubicund Devonian, Lee Ross as a light-fingered, Garrick-inspired ham, Matthew Cottle as a word-obsessed snuff-dealer and Caoilfhionn Dunne as a surly outsider who blossoms under the tutelage of the play’s officer-director."

"The evening could still move a bit more swiftly, but does justice to a landmark play."

Paul Taylor, The Independent

★★★★

"Peter McKintosh's set gives a wonderful sense of the dauntingly vast vistas of this new land with its beautiful backdrop of striations in blue, grey-brown and red that are suggestive of aboriginal art, while the mighty Olivier revolve rears up to reveal beneath the cramped, barbaric conditions of the transportation ships."

"It brings to vivid, splendidly orchestrated life the earthy, scabrous humour amongst the convicts; the brutality of their treatment; and the fractiousness of the naval officers living on their nerves at the other side of the world."

"Strongly recommended."

Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard

★★★★

"it’s given a fresh musical dimension by Cerys Matthews, once of Catatonia and a stalwart of BBC Radio 6. Her original compositions mingle with traditional tunes, and several numbers are performed with piercing clarity by folk singer Josienne Clarke."

"Not all the acting is convincing, and Paul Kaye – as a drunken midshipman hounded by nightmares – seems to be on a different wavelength from those around him."

"director Nadia Fall ensures that the action is mostly fluent, and the play remains a remarkable celebration of theatre’s potential to regenerate lost souls."

Ben Lawrence, Daily Telegraph

★★★

"it’s clear that Timberlake Wertenbaker’s play remains an important piece of work, a love letter to the theatre laced with an anger against those who try to curb its transformative powers."

"The staging of Nadia Fall’s production is simple but effective with the vast space of the Olivier, giving an impression of the endless wilderness (both literal and psychological) in which the characters find themselves."

"there is a major misstep and that lies in former pop star Cerys Matthews’s much-trumpeted new score. It’s a peculiar mix of folk tunes and contemporary sounds which sometimes seems inconsequential and, at others, threatens to completely undermine the play’s emotional power."

Our Country's Good continues at the National Theatre until 17 October.