Tag: Nina Raine

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REVIEW: York Actors Collective, Tiger Country, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York ****

Medical matters: Mick Liversidge, left, and Chris Pomfrett in discussion in York Actors Collective’s Tiger Country

TIGER Country is drama on the cutting edge, taking its title from the term used by a surgeon when conducting an operation near a major blood vessel.

Hospital dramas are two a penny on TV, whether made in the UK or imported from the USA and beyond. They are, however, a lesser spotted breed of theatre: York Actors Collective director Angie Millard could recall Peter Nicholls’s 1969 black comedy The National Health, but nothing since.

It would be too much of a stretch to include the 1997 musical version of Jekyll & Hyde or Dr Frank N Furter in Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Director Angie Millard and stage manager Em Peattie

What’s more, Nina Raine’s focus falls on the doctors and nurses, rather than the patients, whose stories tend to be front and centre in the TV shows.

Premiered at the Hampstead Theatre in 2011, and last performed at the same London theatre in 2014, Tiger Country receives its belated York premiere this week, reaffirming Millard’s knack for reactivating works that may otherwise have escaped our attention,  in her desire to bring more political, thought-provoking theatre to the York stage.

After Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr Sloane, Alexander Zeldin’s slice of agitprop Beyond Caring and Millard’s adaptation of J M Barrie’s rediscovered 1920 supernatural drama Mary Rose, now Millard matches Raine’s meticulous research in her theatrical representation of operations and procedures.

Sri Lanka-born actor and nursing care assistant Madusha Fernando in Tiger Country

She calls them “mimes”, but they have the feel of authenticity, albeit making allowance for being in a theatre, not a hospital theatre.

Millard has drilled into her cast the need for speed at all times, on entries and exits, to match the hectic day in a life of a hospital for her “most challenging production” to date.

Drawing on her extensive research observing daily practice in hospitals in London, West Sussex, Staffordshire and Oxford,  and her interviews with candid doctors, Raine favours quick scenes, in keeping with TV and film editing.

Glove story: Victoria Delaney, left, and Clare Halliday in Tiger Country

In turn, Millard uses hospital signs, and sometimes video footage, to denote a change from  A & E to the Doctors’ Mess to the Consultant’s Room with the minimum fuss on an open-plan set where beds, a desk, mess chairs, a wheelchair and a CPR dummy are whizzed on and off.

All human life (and death) is here amid the badinage and the bandages. As Millard observes in her programme note, “what shines through is the humanity needed to be an NHS worker in today’s world”, one she she updated to post-Covid times. Humanity is shown in both a good and a bad light, not least in the machinations of the NHS, where medics and surgeons argue over procedure and protocol, to the detriment of patients.

Victoria Delaney’s consultant, uncompromising and demanding in a male-dominated  environment, stands out. Friction sparks in the mess, especially between Laurence O’Reilly’s cynical medic and Xandra Logan’s restless trainee doctor, whereas Chris Pomfrett’s unflappable consultant always suggests a good night’s sleep is the solution to any problem.

The impatience of being earnest: Xandra Logan’s trainee doctor, anxious to learn on the job in Tiger Country

Lucinda Rennison, Mick Liversidge and Clare Halliday multi-role play with impressive diversity, and Madusha Fernando brings humour when most needed.

Teamwork is everything in the play and performance alike, but with individual will having a huge impact too, both positive and negative. When Delaney’s consultant has to inform Liversidge’s cancer patient that he is dying, a chill stillness takes over Theatre@41. Theatre at its most powerful, when even medicine is powerless to change life’s path.

York Actors Collective in Tiger Country, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until May 31. 7.30pm tonight, Thursday and Friday; 2.30pm and 6pm, Saturday. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

York artist Karen Winship’s painting from the Tiger Country programme cover, painted for her series of Covid portraits in 2020

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York Actors Collective play doctors and nurses in Nina Raine’s hospital drama Tiger Country at Theatre@41 from tomorrow

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.