Giles Woodforde feels Richard Bean’s drama is overloaded with heavy points

Mutiny on the Bounty tells the story of Captain Bligh, commander of HMS Bounty, and his rebellious crew. Repelled by the Captain’s cruelty, and attracted to the idyllic life they had observed on the Pacific island of Tahiti, 18 crewmen headed by the swashbuck-ling Fletcher Christian stage a mutiny. The original novel has been filmed twice, and David Essex has turned it into a stage musical — famously, the stage-bound Bounty rocked with great realism, and had to be calmed down because the cast was suffering from seasickness.

Now Richard Bean (of One Man, Two Guvnors fame) has taken the story forward, using a mixture of fact and fiction. In 1814 a Royal Navy ship puts into Pitcairn Island, to discover what remains of the mutineers, who settled there after casting Captain Bligh adrift in a small boat. “It’s a damned paradise!” exclaims one officer as he steps ashore. “I’ll wager I’ll find a rum tree in a minute,” says another. Female islanders begin to appear, all pregnant or carrying babies, all with wooden crucifixes round their necks. Thus does Bean signpost the many issues he discusses in this play.

Then the play jumps back to 1790. The mutineers from the Bounty are beginning to establish themselves on Pitcairn. The officers are much given to philosophising: “Imagine life without the clergy,” one of them muses. Meanwhile, bare-chested ratings get busy on booze and sex. Fletcher Christian tries to set up a system of law and order, based on religious principles. But violence escalates, with men committing rape, and women brandishing guns. Pitcairn has literally become a damned paradise — and, indeed, has remained so up until modern times.

Despite the best efforts of highly distinguished director Max Stafford-Clark, the play seems overloaded with words at times, as Bean’s characters make heavy points about female rights, sexual freedom, the advantages and disadvantages of democracy, and the place of religion in society. You feel that the principal characters are simply loudspeakers for someone else’s opinions, they don’t develop into rounded personalities with whom you can engage.

The 15-strong cast works hard to deliver the script with as much fizz and punch as possible. Tom Morley is faced with playing a curiously uncharismatic Fletcher Christian, while at the opposite extreme Samuel Edward-Cook has a ball as sex-crazed Quintal, whose native skirt always seems about to fall off— yes, let’s be fair, playwright Bean does inject a spot of knockabout humour into this sprawling play.

Pitcairn
Oxford Playhouse
Until Saturday
Call 01865 305305 or visit oxfordplayhouse.com