The latest Dean Park­er play (with songs! and live music!) per­formed by the Bac­chanals fol­lows the lives of Eth­el and Ger­van McMil­lan, and Frances and Arnold Nord­mey­er. Ger­van and Arnold played act­ive roles in the Labour gov­ern­ment’s intro­duc­tion of a wel­fare scheme in 1938. It looks at cir­cum­stances that influ­enced their think­ing on wel­fare, then the fight they had to get those ideas accep­ted by the gov­ern­ment. It’s a fas­cin­at­ing look at the ori­gins of an ongo­ing polit­ic­al and soci­et­al issue.

I think this is the best ensemble work I’ve seen the Bachan­nals do. They are adept at the comed­ic scenes and groun­ded for the ser­i­ous scenes. One of the things I like about them is that they’re con­stantly play­ing with the audi­ence as well as each oth­er. There are winks dur­ing some prop wrangling which invites the audi­ence to be part of the exper­i­ence. This pro­duc­tion is anchored by excel­lent per­form­ances by Kirsty Bruce (sassy as Eth­el McMil­lan), Bri­anne Kerr (sweet as Frances Nord­mey­er), Alex Greig (altern­ately cheeky then ser­i­ous as Dr Ger­van McMil­lan), and Michael Trigg (appro­pri­ately right­eous as Arnold Nord­mey­er.) Michael Ness deliv­ers a stir­ring speech as Joe Sav­age.

Tight ensemble work, a lively and enga­ging two hours of overtly polit­ic­al (music and) theatre in elec­tion year.