Book: Jeanie O’Hare
Music and Lyrics: Jim Fortune
Director: Elle While
There can be few people in the UK who remain unaware of the Post Office IT scandal, where subpostmasters across the country were prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting due to errors in Horizon, the central accounting system. But even for those who followed the case since it was first broken in the pages of Computer Weekly, tracked in Private Eye and exploded into a broader public realm with the broadcast of ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office earlier this year, the numbers involved can take one’s breath away.
Over 15 years, 900 subpostmasters were prosecuted, and 236 went to prison. The Post Office would use the Proceeds of Crime Act to seize the assets of anybody found guilty. Numerous others lost their contracts, destroying their livelihoods and reputations.
Rural touring companies Pentabus and New Perspectives have now adapted the story for small stages, taking a musical path through events into village halls around the country and retelling the story to the communities whose rural post offices were directly affected. Jeanie O’Hare and Jim Fortune’s Make Good is named after the process by which subpostmasters had to balance the books every Wednesday evening, which would often be the point at which the errors would come to light.
Lest the whole tragic tale seems too much of a downer, Ed Gaughan kicks off events with a warm-up act, putting the audience at ease and allowing us to laugh in a story with plenty to cry about. That sense of lightness carries through with the introduction of the rest of the cast, three performers who each play a subpostmaster as well as multi-roling numerous supporting characters.
Save for an opening scene in which campaigner Alan Bates (Gaughan) organises a meeting of the postmasters affected (introducing the musical’s key song, You are Not the Only One), events proceed chronologically, starting with the main characters purchasing their post office franchises full of dreams and hope. Samuel Gosrani’s Mohandras dreams of living up to the reputation of his family’s tradition of being postmasters in India; Indira (Charlotte Delima) delights in knowing every single one of her customers, especially the pensioners; Victoria Brazier’s Elsie is eager for a new start.
The first act slowly introduces the arrival of new accounting machines, and soon after, the discrepancies start cropping up. There is a sense of Kafkaesque absurdity as a succession of bored technical support people (played by Gaughan and Brazier) deny the possibility of computer errors, forcing the subpostmasters to reconcile the reported balance differences from their own pocket, even when the discrepancies become greater than an average week’s entire takings.
As the accounting errors pile up, the light-heartedness tends to fade away. There are some attempts at retaining a lighter tone, particularly as the three leads pose as a queue of pensioners in What Is Age? But increasingly, Fortune’s songs feel like a distraction from the main story.
As the troubles proceed into police interviews, arrests and convictions, the impact is effectively conveyed in O’Hare’s book. The social effects of being accused, charged, and even imprisoned are touched upon – from becoming social pariahs in the community that once they served to divorce, familial estrangement and even suicide.
Those who have been following the story will recognise its progression once forensic accountants, campaign groups, and lobbying MPs are able to elicit admissions of culpability from the Post Office and Fujitsu.
The musical elements finally gel with the story with a reprise of You Are Not the Only One as the victims finally get some semblance of justice, with convictions quashed and compensation awarded. But even though the subpostmasters were awarded a £58m payout, by the time legal fees were paid and the remainder split, there was only c. £20,000 for each life destroyed.
Perhaps the musical’s strongest point is laid bare by Gosrani, as Mohandas compares his ancestors’ adoration for the Indian post office (based on the British Royal Mail) to the contempt with which he has been treated. The pursuit of capitalist ideals in the handling and degradation of what had been one of the world’s greatest social enterprises has resulted in one of the largest public service scandals of all time.
What Make Good illustrates is that, within the immensity of such a scandal, it is the personal stories that hit the hardest. Whether or not its reframing as a musical improves its telling, the story is one that cannot be allowed to be forgotten.
Reviewed on 9 November 2024, then touring nationally
The Reviews Hub Score
A picture of Kafkaesque true-life scandal
