Twelve Angry Men In Leeds

If proof were ever needed that bigotry is alive and well, then look no further than Leeds and Bradford over the last fortnight...........then pray that you have a benevolent architect in your corner if injustice looms!

Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men at Leeds Grand Theatre, follows a dozen jurors who have murder on their minds and a life in their hands, as they decide the fate of a young 16 year old delinquent accused of killing his father with a knife.

But, as the curtain opened, there was a distinct feeling of deja vous. Last week it was Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, followed by Arthur Miller's, A View From The Bridge at Bradford's Alhambra.....both also rooted in prejudice, bigotry and small mindedness.

And all top drawer!

Tom Conti, as Juror 8, was the logical, New York architect who slowly and systematically convinces 11 fellow jurors, that their initial 'guilty' verdict is not only premature, but fundamentally wrong because it could never be beyond reasonable doubt.

Unless you have been on a jury you can only ever guess what happens behind closed doors, however, Twelve Angry Men is powerful - and popular - because it panders to that sense of voyeurism in each and every one of us.....the chance to watch what's happening without anyone knowing we are there!

The original movie poster said the film - staring Henry Fonda - exploded like 12 sticks of dynamite!

Personally, it is rare that something blows me away to the extent that I gulp down the PR hype, however, Rose's script is clever, thought provoking and incredibly sustainable considering that it is set in one small juror room.

The characters are so strong - the ad man who talks in metaphors and clichés, the baseball fan who just wants to get to the game, the Wall Street broker, the watch maker - in reality 12 'ordinary' men with all their foibles and misgivings.

Temperatures and tempers run high, people are prepared to declare their 'victim' guilty in the name of getting to the ball game, or simply because they just want to get home.

But as the clock ticks and people are made to think at a level they are rarely called on to do, views change, prejudices are challenged and personal feelings are stripped bare.

Andrew Lancel as Juror 3, the angry man tainted by his relationship with his own son, was tough on the outside until he eventually crumbles under shifting peer pressure, and Denis Lill as the long in the tooth New Yorker was stubborn and almost unshiftable until he also gives way. Both excellent interpretations of character.

This was a play of emotions that grips like a vice, and each and every one of us could see either ourselves or someone we knew on stage. It is so easy to be eaten by prejudice and to 'kill' someone under the comparative anonymity of the juror room; the defendant would most definitely have gone to the electric chair.

In some ways its central theme had overtures of the Playhouse's 'Grounded' in which a drone pilot stalks and kills her prey at distance then goes home for tea.

This is a timeless script. It began as a screen play in the 50's, but is as durable today as it was all those years ago because it is a production of the human condition, and a spyglass on time when prejudice was vocalised more readily. Today much of that prejudice remains but is perhaps muted in the name of political correctness.

Hear the news today? A US policeman shot an unarmed black man in the back. Said he feared for his life. A passer-by's video claims to prove otherwise! Video cameras weren't as readily available in the 50's.

Twelve Angry Men
Leeds Grand