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Nothing elementary about this one
Arthur & George
Birmingham Rep
***
I HAVE no idea how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle spoke but Adrian
Lukis (pictured right with the suspected knife) gave us a Doyle who
seemed to fit the part admirably - quite capital as Sir Arthur Himself
might have said.
He was impetuous, questioning, appeared vague and hesitant as his
thought processes ticked over in front of us, yet taking in each detail
and computing it in a brain that was always looking for a decisive move,
a key clue to solve the puzzle.
There is an Edinburgh burr to his clipped voice along with an
impatience and that certain arrogance that the upper classes were
afforded.
Doyle, who became so famous, and mistaken for Sherlock
Holmes so often, that he killed off his creation for self
preservation, was asked by George Edalji, the son of a Bombay Parsi
clergyman and a Scottish mother to help him win a free pardon he had
been jailed for mutilating livestock and sending menacing letters.
Chris Nayak's George (seen below) is naive and hardly worldly wise
with a belief people cannot dislike you for the colour of your skin
unless they know you first.
The events all surround the turn of the 19th century and this
world premiere of David Edgar's play based on the novel by Julian Barnes
is somewhat personal to the West Midlands.
George was a Birmingham solicitor and his offices in Newhall
Street are no more than five or so minutes brisk walk from the theatre.
The events took place where his family lived in Great Wyrley in
Norton Canes just off the Chester Road, north of Walsall and overlooked
these days by a Sainsbury's on a hill on the road to Cannock.
That there was racial prejudice was apparent from the police
investigation and interviews and the attitude of the Staffordshire Chief
Constable, whose clash with Doyle was the pivotal scene. He saw George
as a half-caste where the mixed blood brought civilisation on the one
hand and barbarism on the other. His lawyers were less than impressive at the trial where Edalji lives through the cross examinations in dramatised memories as he relates his tale of woe to Sir Arthur.
Richard Attlee, Simon Coates and Daniel Crowder took on all the
other characters with some admirable Walsall accents and the ability to
make the cast look much larger rather than people doubling up. Their
characters all had a life of their own.
Around the action fluttered the women in the play, Jean Leckie, (Kirsty
Hoiles) who was waiting for the recently widowed Doyle to make her his
second wife and George's sister, Maud, who offered support and sympathy
while Doyle's long suffering secretary Woodie, played with a hint of
humour by William Beck tried, with little success, to rein in his
employer's enthusiasm.
Edgar states in the programme notes that it was a challenge to adapt a long complex novel of 500 pages to the stage.
Unless the audience are asked to bring a flask, sandwiches and a
sleeping bag the result is always going to be a précis, the bare bones
which gives none of the time, or scope, for character development or
explanation.
We see how Doyle tried to solve the case as he would if it had
been another Sherlock Holmes story, by deduction and supposition, rather
than hard facts and evidence - a method that appalled solicitor George
who had been convicted on much the same sort of supposition and innuendo
and did not want to see another man suffer the same fate.
With the play down to the bare bones of the story flesh is in
short supply and we never found out, beyond George wanting to practice
law again and Doyle wanting a free pardon for him, what drove the two
men. It was almost as if we were shown chapter headings but not allowed
to delve into the pages. The result is a story which is complicated but
shorn of much of its complexity.
Why for example was Doyle so obsessed with righting what he perceived as a grave miscarriage of justice or George, a man who seemed to have few friends in either Birmingham or Great Wyrley, so sure that racial prejudice could not exist if you did not know the person?
The direction by Rachel Kavanaugh keeps the story flowing on a
revolving and constantly evolving set which manages to be hotel lobby,
billiard room, pub snug, police station and a wedding reception with a
few sticks of furniture and some clever lighting from Tim Mitchell.
Actors walk from one scene to the next as the stage moves beneath
them which produces a coherent, continuous plot while a video screen in
the distance gives an impression of horses, of trains and all manner of
things as vague images to provide atmosphere.
Edgar has to be congratulated on reducing the book to just over
two hours and keeping the plot intact but I suspect you will need to
read the novel to discover the real story, the whys and wherefores
rather than just the stark facts.
Incidentally this case and Doyle's campaign not only brought a
free pardon but it also led directly to the creation of the Court of
Criminal Appeal in 1907.
And, as another aside, the threatening and obscene letters,
written in the name of the Wyrley Gang continued for another quarter of
a century before it was discovered they came from an Enoch Knowles of
Wednesbury who was convicted in 1934. To 10-04-10. Roger Clarke
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