For 80 years England transported convicts to Australia. These brutal, degraded human beings were shipped to a place they could do little harm for the good of their mother country. How then did this scum of England become the foundation of a country which less than 100 years later was considered a paradise on earth, a promised land to which people have flocked ever since?

Set against a background of beatings, hangings, lack of food and general hardship, “Our Country’s Good” is based on real events which took place in the penal colony of Botany Bay. The leader of the colony tries to increase the morale of the convicts by making them present a play, the first ever in Australia. In the course of the rehearsals, both convicts and soldiers discover their common humanity and take the first faltering steps to the creation of a new country.

“Our Country’s Good” is one of the most important plays to emerge from the innovative Royal Court Theatre in the 1980s. Timberlake Wertenbaker casts a clear eye on the birth struggles of her country, both the life affirming as well as their darker aspects.