This presentation by Platform 8 productions of Steve Gooch’s 1973 play is set below decks on a convict transport ship in 1807, where six women are confined in a single cell, sentenced to transportation to years of hard labour in Australia for various petty crimes.
Image © Platform 8 Productions
Unsurprisingly, this is an unremittingly bleak situation, reflected in the starkly-lit set, which shows clearly the contrast between the situation of the women, and the males above and below decks who control, or try to control them.
As a portrayal of the early days of the iniquitous 80-year-long Australian penal colony system, it pulls no punches.
The women, girls some of them, are brought vividly to life by the strong cast, who portray realistically the effect of such confinement on them. Some respond with defiance, some with black humour, some with despair (in one case suicidally).
Only sporadically do they show concern for each other, and there is continuous foul-mouthed squabbling with one another, and against their often brutal jailors.
The cynical motivation for profit in this from the Captain and the other men is made clear; the half-hearted attempts by the surgeon to protest against the excesses of the physical punishments meted out prove ineffectual, as he himself is complicit in the profiteering.
The idea put forward in the programme that somehow this experience has raised the political awareness of the women, and united them in solidarity with each other to fight for equality, does not really ring true: nevertheless, this powerful production exposes unflinchingly one of the nastier episodes in British imperial history.
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Reviewer: John Christopher Wood | Star rating: ****
