Timberlake Wertenbaker

George Farquar

Nicholas Le Prevost

Stuart McQuarrie

Paul Moriarty

Adam Billington

Full Cast

Paul Higgins

Lisa Dillon

Adjoa Andoh

Ralph Ineson

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 &amp; 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

George Farquar

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