Theatre is good for you – in fact it’s good for everyone. That’s the conclusion of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good, a play that focuses on the story of how a group of brutalised 18th-century convicts are redeemed by art, as they put on a performance of Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer. The play has been a favourite in repertory since its debut in 1988, but is this new student production at the Burton Taylor as good for you as the playwright might hope?

Thankfully, the answer is broadly, yes. Although the play has been trimmed slightly, the effect has been to focus powerful themes of love, redemption and guilt, and these feel very immediate in the intimate setting. This is helped by the fact that the acting is good. Rhys Bevan as Ralph Clark provides a nuanced performance, portraying a character who champions the theatre with sensitivity without toppling into moral hectoring, something the role sometimes can become lost in.

The female convicts portray a touching vulnerability, and their metamorphosis into actresses is convincingly handled, while Robbie Ross, the villain of the piece, is suitably snarling. An interesting and brave acting choice has been to take on the kind of doubling that the original production used to great effect, juxtaposing kindness and hardness alternately. This does lead to occasional sticky moments where the sense is that the actor inhabits one role more than another, but generally works well. The simple costumes also add to the sense of period the production aims for.

The original was devised in part as a protest against the threat of major cutbacks in arts funding as Britain faced hard economic times, and this revival feels like it has come at timely moment, as we debate once again what good are the arts? This is an entertaining new production, well produced and directed and the ideal forum to go and examine that question once again. Until Saturday. Tel: 01865 305305 (www.oxfordplayhouse.com).