The Recruiting Officer

"The Recruiting Officer" is a 1706 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar, which follows the social and sexual exploits of two officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, in the town of Shrewsbury to recruit soldiers. The characters of the play are generally stock, in keeping with the genre of Restoration Comedy.

There have been two television adaptations of the play, one in 1965 for Australian television, and one Play of the Month in 1973, the latter starring Ian McKellen as Plume, Prunella Ransome as his sweetheart Silvia, Jane Asher as Melinda, John Moffatt as Brazen, and Brian Blessed as Sergeant Kite.

'The Recruiting Officer' was the first play to be staged in the Colony of New South Wales, which is now Australia, by the convicts of the First Fleet in 1789 under the governance of Captain Arthur Phillip RN (also Commodore of the First Fleet).Hughes, Robert (1987) 'The Fatal Shore', Collins]

Thomas Keneally wrote a novel, "The Playmaker", based on the staging of this play by the First Fleet. The novel was adapted into a play, "Our Country's Good", in 1988, by Timberlake Wertenbaker. Both works deal with the nature and merits of punishment, rehabilitation and theatre.

The German dramatist Bertolt Brecht adapted "The Recruiting Officer" as "Trumpets and Drums" in 1955.

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