Courtyard's Senior Youth Theatre present Our Country's Good (From Hereford Times)

Courtyard's Senior Youth Theatre present Our Country's Good

3:50pm Thursday 26th January 2012 in Theatre & Comedy

CHOOSING a script for the Courtyard’s Senior Youth Theatre productions is the first challenge director David Durant faces when the time comes to showcase his students’ skills.

Following an impressive production of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys in 2010, David has gone for another now-classic work, Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker.

“When selecting pieces for the SYT, they have to fit a range of criteria. Is it a good enough title to appeal to an audience, and is it going to challenge the actors and bring them on with their skills?

“It could have been a Shakespeare play, and in the end it was a toss-up between Our Country’s Good and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but what swung it finally was the fact that the people in this production really existed.

Wertenbaker’s play – in 1988 it won the Laurence Olivier BBC Award for best new play and a best actor award for David Haig – is set in the first penal colony in the 1870s and centres on a group of Royal Marines and convicts as Second Lieutenant Ralph Clark’s attempts to put on a production of George Farquhar’s restoration comedy The Recruiting Officer with a cast of male and female prisoners.

The play shows the class system in the convict camp and explores, among several themes, the judicial system of the time and the redemptive and humanising effect of theatre.

“Our Country’s Good is absolutely about the power of theatre to redeem and improve your standing,” explains David.

“It has tremendous depth and real people, whose lives and stories are screaming out to be told.”

Beyond the content of a play, there are other considerations David has to take into account when making a final selection: “Any piece we do also needs to have a decent cast list with enough parts for everyone to have enough to do, and this ticked every box. There are 18 actors in the cast, playing a total of 22 parts, so some people are doubling up.”

The SYT production provides a training ground for a lot of the members, many going on to drama school.

“Three of the current 18 got through to National Youth Theatre, while two others have been offered university places and three have recalls at Guildhall, RADA and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland,” says David.

“It’s a fantastic achievement.”

But of course, no script David chooses will go into production before being run past the cast.

“The first reaction is important – if their interest and excitement isn’t instantly piqued it will be difficult.

But when they’d read it, there was a great eruption of excitement – it was a fantastic moment for me, and confirmed that it was the right choice.

“It’s a play that’s become a classic and the impact the original production had on director and staff was huge,” he adds. “A book written by Max Stafford Clarke who directed the premiere of Our Country’s Good, giving a detailed account of the rehearsal process of a production of The Recruiting Officer, is fascinating.

“The current Senior Youth Theatre is equally balanced between the genders, unlike the previous incarnation which was male heavy, something that influenced the selection of The History Boys as the last production, and it’s fascinating to watch the dynamics between them “It’s much more evenly split now, which made finding a play with a number of quality parts really important.

“It’s really giving youngsters the opportunity they need. I think this play shows them off. It gives them the chance to shine and that’s what it’s all about.”

Our Country’s Good runs at The Courtyard from February 23 to 25. To book, call the box office on 01432 340555

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