Victoria Delaney, left, and Clare Halliday in a scene from York Actors Collective’s production of Tiger Country
NINA Raine’s hospital drama Tiger Country derives its title from a term used in surgery. When operating near a big blood vessel, a surgeon is in dangerous territory and might warn the team: “Careful, you’re approaching tiger country”.
Premiered at a sold-out Hampstead Theatre in 2011, this meticulously researched play was last staged in its revival at the London theatre in 2014. Now, Angie Millard gives it a contemporary, post-Covid setting in its York premiere by her York Actors Collective (YAC) company, with advice from a couple of medics to update it.
“I read a lot of plays to find something that’s suitable for YAC to stage. I don’t do potboilers. I do plays that interest me. If I’m going to make theatre as a hobby, I’m not doing soap opera material! After reading Tiger Country I thought, ‘wow, I must do this play’. It’s so different from anything I’ve done before,” says Angie, who has undergone hospital surgery herself recently.
“It’s about doctors, which struck me as interesting, as in so many plays, or if you watch Holby City or Casualty on TV, you empathise with the patients. The last play I could think of that touched on this subject was Peter Nicholls’ black comedy, The Health Health [or Nurse Norton’s Affair] at the National Theatre, and that was decades ago [1969, to be be precise].
Madusha Ferdinando: Sri Lanka-born actor and ward nursing assistant, who will perform in Tiger Country
“Raine’s play sees it from the surgeons’ point of view, drawing attention to the effect the pressures have on the medical staff’s daily life, and I’ve never seen a play that’s done that before. As with the TV dramas, you don’t ‘go home’ with the surgeons and see the impact on their home lives that way, but you hear them talk about it in the mess. You really feel for the medics.”
For research, Oxford-educated theatre director and playwright Raine spent months embedded in an urological surgeon’s surgical team, learning about the mechanics of a hospital and what makes doctors and surgeons tick.
The resulting play considers doctors’ dilemmas as a range of clinical and ethical issues come under the spotlight in a busy hospital. Professionalism and prejudice, turbulent staff romances, ambition and failure collide in a frank account of the dedicated individuals that keep our overburdened health service going.
“It’s hard to direct and to perform because it’s almost cinematic in its style,” says Angie. “Characters will come on, do one quick scene and then they’re off again, so it’s fast-paced dialogue to match what’s happening.”
Mick Liversidge, left, and Chris Pomfrett in rehearsal for York Actors Collective’s York premiere of Tiger Country
In the cast at Theatre@41, Monkgate, from tomorrow are Victoria Delaney, Madusha Ferdinando, Clare Halliday, Mick Liversidge, Xandra Logan, Laurence O’Reilly, Chris Pomfrett and Lucinda Rennison.
“I said I wouldn’t do this play if I couldn’t find actors from different cultures because the NHS is so diverse in its ethnicity. Thankfully I found Madusha Ferdinando through the York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust.
“He was an actor in Sri Lanka before coming here, and then played a king in A Nativity for York. He’s a comic actor at heart, who plays the doctor who’s the joker in our play.
“The rest of the cast is like a rep company of regulars, and they don’t let me down. They know that I only work for eight weeks on each play, where I like the rehearsals to be intense.”
Several cast members work in the health service in various roles – community nurse (Chris Pomfrett), ward nursing assistant (Madusha Ferdinando) and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (Laurence O’Reilly, at Northern General Hospital, Sheffield), all helping to conjure up a credible portrait of hospital life.
On call: Xandra Logan in a scene from Tiger Country
“They’re aware of what it takes to work in the hospital environment, so it’s been handy to have them on board,” says Angie. “Chris, for example, worked with his consultant, who took him through all the procedures he needs to do in the play. We also consulted with a medical advisor and resuscitation officer to help the team learn how to manage procedures.
“They were shown how to mime stitching, draining a lung and general examination techniques. I don’t think anyone realised how tricky it all is. The trick on stage is to get all the ‘mimes’ correct and not do them in a fussy way.”
Angie has paid for a torso and head from the British Heart Foundation. “It’s usually used to teach CPR, and we do have CPR in one scene after a heart attack. We put a wig on the head and it does look quite real as the torso bounces up and down!” she says. “Earlier in rehearsals we had to use a rolled-up duvet!”
Assembling the set has been “fun”. “It features hospital beds and operating tables, which would cost £500 even to hire, so I got beds that are used by massage therapists – I bought two on the internet – and some tables and chairs that could be used in the NHS or in the mess,” says Angie.
“Whatever we couldn’t manage to get in the way of items, we learnt how to use mime for them, like scalpels or oxygen supplies. You will be watching a dramatic theatrical representation. That’s the point of theatre!”
York Actors Collective in Tiger Country, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, May 27 to 31; tomorrow to Friday, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 6pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.