“Two and twenty horses killed under me that day”
Accompanying their production of
Our Country’s Good, Out of Joint have put together
a programme of rehearsed readings of various of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s plays and threw in a bonus reading of George Farquhar’s
The Recruiting Officer for good measure. It is a natural choice as it is the play which the convicts of Our Country’s Good are performing and in using the same cast here, the actors are able to play the characters they are ‘rehearsing’ in the other piece which has a lovely neatness about it.
Farquhar’s play is deliciously dry and funny, impressively so for a 1706 Restoration comedy, and even with the limited rehearsal time and the cast having scripts in hand, there was a real sense of the rich comic potential of the material. And having seen it fairly recently at
the Donmar Warehouse, it was interesting to see the different choices and dynamics that a new company brought. Ian Redford’s older Kite had a weariness of the soul that felt entirely appropriate, John Hollingworth’s take on Brazen was straighter than Mark Gatiss’ out-and-out fop but no less hilarious for it and the doubling that most of the actors did was impressively done and added to the humour quotient.
There was even a chance for some audience participation, filling in some of the smaller roles of the second half and the lucky four people can now say that they have been directed by Max Stafford-Clark who was on hand to introduce the whole afternoon as well. So a most pleasant way to spend some time, watching a talented group of actors stretching their thespian muscles a little (which is always fascinating to me, as is their choice of civvies!) and a neat companion piece to the main production of
Our Country’s Good.
