Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Martin Shaw’s flaws make him perfect for Twelve Angry Men

He's not a substantial character, he's the spirit of justice. Just what the play needs!

Credit: Robert Day 
issue 30 November 2013
Strange actor, Martin Shaw. He’s got all the right equipment for major stardom: a handsome and complicated face, a languid sexiness, a decent physique and a magnificent throbbing voice. He sounds like a lion feeling peckish in mid-afternoon. At top volume, his growl could dislodge chimney pots. And yet he’s just a steady-eddy TV performer who does the odd stint in the West End. Why isn’t he Patrick Stewart or Anthony Hopkins? Perhaps his rhythm is too slow. Certainly, he lacks pep or sparkle, or a sense of mystery. You know what he’s going to do next because he’s just done it. And even then it wasn’t much. Warmth, innocence and fun are outside his range but these defects make him a great choice to play the central role in Twelve Angry Men. The script, filmed in 1957 with Henry Fonda, is an ingenious upside-down whodunnit. A teenage boy is about to get the chair for knifing his father to death.

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