Robert Icke’s new play examines one of the least appetising characters in British criminal history. Raoul Moat went on a shooting spree in July 2010 that left his wife injured, a cop blinded and an innocent man dead. This superb piece of reportage offers us a glimpse into the mind of a damaged brute. Moat had a rough childhood, like a lot of kids. His dad was absent, his mother was mentally unstable and when he was seven, she set fire to all his toys. Very traumatic, no doubt, but kids have survived worse.
He grew into a 17st bully who felt cheated by the system and blamed everyone else for his woes. Part of the tragedy is that he had talent. He was energetic and ambitious. He worked as a bouncer, as a scrap-metal dealer, and as a tree surgeon with the tradename ‘Mr Trimmit’. What he needed was a powerful male voice to stop him acting like a cry baby and treating every setback as a terminal disaster. He never got the chance.
Samuel Edward-Cook delivers an impressive portrait of a frenzied, damaged thug. He doesn’t sanitise or glamourise his subject but makes him watchable and horribly intriguing. In the opening scene, Moat tells his solicitor that he won’t plead guilty to striking his child five times because he’s innocent. His bizarre argument is that no child could survive five blows from his fists so the accusation must be groundless. The solicitor is momentarily tempted to see Moat as a harmless and misunderstood pacifist. Then Moat picks up a table and hurls it across the room, which sends the solicitor sprawling.
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