Our legal system is pure theatre and always has been. Many barristers stand accused of being failed actors and vice versa. Judges love the dressing-up box and a chance to give their gavel a good bang. With murmuring galleries, shocking verdicts, swooning witnesses, cries of ‘all rise’ and ‘take him down’, the flummery and drama of the courtroom has always supplied a rich genre for film, theatre and telly. Now there’s a chance to see one of the more serious courtroom classics in the West End.
Twelve Angry Men — originally written for the screen and directed by Sidney Lumet — is about a grumpy New York jury deciding on the fate of an ethnic kid accused of stabbing his father. If guilty, it’s the electric chair. There’s racism in the air as 12 men sweat it out in a heatwave, keen to get their verdict returned and to go home.
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