Our Country's Good

Our Country's Good Synopsis

Australia 1789. A young married lieutenant is directing rehearsals of the first play ever to be staged in that country. With only two copies of the text, a cast of convicts, and one leading lady who may be about to be hanged, conditions are hardly ideal...

Winner of the Laurence Olivier Play of the Year Award in 1988, and many other major awards, Our Country's Good premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1988 and opened on Broadway in 1991.

Based on the novel The Playmaker by Thomas Keneally

It is published here in a new Methuen Student Edition, alongside commentary and notes by Sophie Bush.

The commentary includes a chronology of the play and the playwright’s life and work as well as discussion of the social, political, cultural and economic context in which the play was originally conceived and created.

To support further study of Our Country's Good, you can find resources compiled by Sophie Bush available on the Bloomsbury English and Drama Teacher Resources page.

And join Sophie Bush for a Q&A session as she discusses her own experience of teaching the play, her research into the history, practice and politics of contemporary British Theatre, as well as exploring some practical ways of teaching Our Country’s Good to students at home.

A Preview of Our Country's Good is available here.

Used by multiple exam boards as set texts and comparison texts on Drama and Theatre Studies and English Literature courses.