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A CurtainUp 
London Review
London ReviewTiger Country
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We have to make decisions on our own without consultants every single day of our lives.
— Mark, a junior doctor
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Thusitha Jayasundera as Vasti, Nicholas Tennant as Brian (Photo: Robert Workman) |
The opening scenes show us Emily (Ruth Everett), a senior house officer or junior doctor, new to this hospital and full of the idealism that means that she will carry on trying to resuscitate a patient who is dead. "You can't save everyone" says the registrar to her. Tiger Country chronicles her journey as she differentiates between the possible and the impossible, accepts her own limitations and becomes more inured to the death of those in her care. Along the way Emily has the help of Pip Carter's more experienced Mark who has problems of his own as he crosses his haranguing and overly critical line manager, surgeon Vashti (Thusitha Jayasundera). Vashti too experiences life on the other side of the medical patient divide when her aunt (Harvey Virdi) becomes a patient on the ward and gets poor treatment. There is criticism too of a health service poorly staffed and poorly equipped with many failures of communication.
The theatrical staging is different from television dramas which tend to concentrate on close up shots of one or two people. Onstage one can show the bigger picture, the commotion, almost chaos as several members of staff try to save a patient wheeled in b y the emergency services. Unfortunately the use of loud exciting music in these scenes and between them, serves only to emphasize the tension, the drama, rather than the desperation which we feel could be Raine's point. There are videos of operations and procedure after procedure for an authentic feel but admirable as it is, somehow this technical expertise doesn't plough the depths of character. I tend to believe that authors directing their own work is not as useful creatively as the injection of ideas of a separate theatre professional, although there are of course exceptions.
Adam James is excellent as the registrar with his own illness, possibly lymphoma, showing the deep insecurity of the medical profession when facing themselves as patients because they know the possible worst case scenarios. Pip Carter too is surely an actor destined for great parts in the future although his role here is not one of them. Thusitha Jayasundera has integrity as an actor and is never afraid of playing a less than sympathetic role, here giving up her long fought for promotion to save her aunt as she tells us what a masculine world surgery is. Henry Lloyd-Hughes plays James, Emily's doctor boyfriend exhausted after the long hours demanded by the job. We see David Cann as a brave patient whose doctor has to explain that his cancer is terminal.
Tiger Country had me thinking back to the impact forty years ago of Peter Nichols' play The National Health or Nurse Norton's Affair contrasting television medico-drama with the dull, desperate reality of life on the hospital wards.
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| Tiger Country
Written and directed by Nina Raine Starring: Thusitha Jayasundera, Pip Carter, Ruth Everett, Adam James With: Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Tricia Kelly, Joan Kempson, Nicolas Tennant, Harvey Virdi Designed by Lizzie Clachan Lighting: Rick Fisher Video Design: Dick Straker Running time: Two hours 10 minutes with an interval Box Office: 020 7907 7092 Booking to 5th February 2011 Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge based on 19th January 2011 performance at The Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, London NW3 3EU (Tube: Swiss Cottage) |
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