Performances about convicts can be a bit hit-and-miss. Some are particularly moving and, if well-executed, engaging. Others tend to seem like a high-school drama class in silly wigs and breeches. Our Country's Good was, unfortunately, towards the latter end of the scale.

Adapted by Timberlake Wertenbaker in 1988 from Thomas Keneally's book The Playmaker, Our Country's Good tells the story of the first play ever to be performed in Australia, under the governance of Arthur Phillip in an effort to bring some culture to the colony, and to take the convict's minds off the regular hangings and floggings. Lieutenant Ralph Clark (Charles Cousins) is charged with making actors out of a motely bunch of petty theives, including Liz Morden (Amy Kersey) who is destined for the gallows.

Australia's first theatre troupe overcome many obstacles, not the least of which is the desire by officers to call the whole thing off, in order to be able to perform The Recruiting Officer. However, it's not all doom and gloom; there are some comical scenes, although they are few and far between. To be brutally honest, I was a little bored by the script. At just under two and a half hours, I felt there was quite a bit of dialogue that could have been cut, especially as it seemed that some of the seemingly juicy storylines were left dangling and never resolved.

Having said that, the cast do a fantastic and credible job. Cousins has a confident and un-selfconscious air, while Libby Richmond's Dabby Bryant is suitably overbearing and grating, and Jessica Donogue's Mary so soft spoken I had to strain to hear her. The set is simple but effective - logs of wood in the shape of a ships mast, doubling as a screen and tripling as a hanging-post.

Our Country's Good is laden with symbolism. The cast play both officers and convicts, and to use one of the lines from the play, in a country so remote and deserted as Australia, the officers are as much in exile as the prisoners themselves. Who are the real criminals? The irony of convicts performing a play about the redemptive qualities of putting on a play is not lost. It's a clever idea and brings to mind Louis Nowra's Cosi, in which a group of patients at a mental institution perform Cosi Fan Tutte. But whereas Nowra's play is modern and relevant, Our Country's Good comes across as a history lesson, with no real meaning to take away, and doesn't provoke much thought after the curtain falls.