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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain, model, hostess, mistress and prostitute The Thrill of Love
Highbury Theatre Centre
**** RUTH Ellis is a name that still resonates
62 years on; there is still an uneasiness, a questioning, even a regret
about not so much her conviction, but her punishment, the last woman to
be hanged in Britain. That she was guilty there is no doubt, before witnesses she shot her lover David Blakely four times, and missed him twice, outside the Magdala pub in Hamstead on Easter Sunday, 1955. Until then Ruth Ellis, originally Ruth Neilson from Rhyl, was known only in the seedy world of gentlemen’s private members clubs where the rich could indulge in their baser pleasures. From that moment she was a household name, a celebrity, a sensation with her own chapter in history. She had found nude modelling paid better than
shop and factory work and from there she graduated to hostess, willing
to sell far more than drinks, at The Court Club in Mayfair where she
became best friends with Vickie Martin, who was to become a protégé of
Stephen Ward, a regular at the club where he was to later meet Christine
Keeler, but that is another story. Amanda Whittingham’s 2013 play opens with the
killing in a stylised staging followed by Det Insp Jack Gale questioning
Ruth. Despite her admission of guilt he is sure there is more to the
crime and with a cast of three more of her friends, the life of Ruth
Ellis is slowly dissected. Emma Woodcock gives us an infuriating Ellis, a
woman who will say or do nothing to aid her defence and a woman who
almost enjoys being the victim, leaving and then always returning to her
then husband, abusive divorced dentist, George Ellis, and then later
clinging to the violent, womanising Blakely, despite also being the
mistress of Desmond Cussen. Woodcock is at times flighty, at times even
prudish, and at times emotionally a wreck, such as when Vickie dies in
unlucky car crash no 13, or when Blakely doesn’t appear as promised. We
watch her slow descent from confident hostess to needy, insecure
mistress, lover and, let’s be honest, whore, fuelled by a diet of booze
and pills. She shows no remorse for the murder, and does nothing to
avoid execution, preferring it to 25 years in jail, and goes to her
death with more calm assurance and dignity than she has shown in most of
her life.
Emma Woodcock as Ruth Ellis, Robert Hicks as DI Gale and Pip Oliver as Sylvia. Picture: Alastair Barnsley Robert Hicks is the epitome of a Met DI of the
50s - remember Raymond Francis as Lockhart of the Yard? Nothing flashy,
no good cop, bad cop, just an honest detective seeking the truth as to
why Ellis committed the murder. He is not uneasy about the guilt, just
the circumstances and this is a woman he believes does not deserve the
death penalty, trying to find a reason to reduce the penalty to life. A
well measured performance. Which leaves us with the three women in Ellis’s
life, Sylvia Shaw, the hard as nails manager of The Court Club, but in
the romantic tradition of such a calling, she is a tart with a heart
played with a confident and, at times, concerned air in a convincing
performance by Pip Oliver. Then there is Vickie, who arrives fresh from nude
modelling to start a career as a hostess, seeing it as a path to fame
and fortune, declaring she will go home in a silver Rolls Royce. Siobhan
Kilmartin mixes ambition with vulnerability as the newcomer and you can
almost see her weighing up the cost and benefits when she is told of the
ways to make more, lots more money by accommodating customers in, should
we say, a more horizontal fashion. And finally there is Doris, played by Julia Mewis, the char, who cleans up the mess, both physical and mental, in the clubs. When Ruth is suffering after losing her baby after being punched in the stomach by Blakely, it's Doris who stays with her. When Ruth is in bits at the funeral of Vickie, again it’s Doris who is picking up the pieces. Another convincing performance. The play is a series of flashbacks, the build-up
to the killing and director Laura McLaurie has made the staging almost
semi-judicial with Sylvia, Vickie and Doris sitting in a row at the rear
of the stage, almost like a jury, or witnesses, called to give evidence
in their own little scenes. The setting from Malcolm Robertshaw is
simple, with a bar that swivels from The Court Club to The Little Club,
the club where Ellis was later installed as manager, a table and chairs.
Simple, but like the direction, effective. Breaking the vignettes up with Billie Holiday songs, including the once banned sad Cole Porter song about prostitution, Love for Sale, helped set the scene and the period. The sound, supposedly using an old automatic record player, is well balanced by Tony Reynolds with lighting, from Jackson Gleeson, breaking up the stage into its individual parts.
Full marks for
authentic looking costumes as well, especially Sylvia’s turban and
housecoat. It all helped to set the scene of smoky, sleazy nightclubs.
Although the play never tries to justify or even understand the killing,
difficult as Ellis never attempts to explain or understand it herself,
it does reach a conclusion, the one dictated by history, that is both
unsatisfactory and gives that feeling of unease, amplified by the three
friends donning masks as if justice is faceless. Ellis was hanged on 13
July, 1955 at Holloway prison. She was just 28. The hanging, incidentally, is represented in a
dignified way with a minimum of fuss – which perhaps mirrors the actual
execution by Albert Pierrepoint which took just 12 second. There were huge petitions and a public outcry
about the decision to hang Ellis. The police tried to find evidence that
would, if not exonerate, at least commute, the prosecution made
representations and even the trial judge, Mr Justice Havers, grandfather
of actor Nigel, had written to the home secretary Major Gwilym
Lloyd-George, younger son of David Lloyd George, recommending a reprieve
for what was a crime of passion. Lloyd-George refused every plea, a
decision which, it is said, made the then Prime Minister, Anthony Eden,
uncomfortable. A crime passionnel in most countries is treated with a
certain degree of leniency, reducing charges to second degree murder,
manslaughter, or, even less. But not in Britain. It is remarkable that the play manages to convey the same unease so long after the event, an event which, although not the sole reason, was a strong force in the abolition of capital punishment 10 years later. Of the 145 women sentenced to death last century, just 14 were actually hanged. But it was not only the hanging of women which people found unpalatable but the whole concept of executions. Highbury has found an interesting play affording
a fascinating look behind the mask of Ruth Ellis which is well acted by
the cast of five in a well paced drama peeling away the layers of a
complex character.. We know the murderer and the result, but there is
still a mystery to solve and this goes some way to answering at least
some of the questions. To 25-03-17. Roger Clarke 15-03-17 The tragic tale of Ruth Ellis did not end there.
Ruth’s mother, Berta, tried to kill herself and, although found alive,
never recovered, living out her days in mental impairment. George Ellis,
by now an alcoholic, killed himself in 1958. Ellis had two illegal
abortions and a miscarriage but as a 17-year-old she became pregnant by
a Canadian soldier towards the end of the war, having a son, Andy, who
was ten when she was hanged. He committed suicide after desecrating her
grave in 1982 The trial judge, Sir Cecil Havers, had sent money every
year for Andy's upkeep, while Christmas Humphreys, the prosecution
counsel at Ellis's trial, paid for his funeral. Ellis also had a daughter, Georgina, with George,
finally leaving and divorcing him when he refused to acknowledge
paternity. She was three when Ellis was executed. She became a bunny
girl, and a hostess, dated George Best and was romantically linked with
Richard Harris, and, with evidence that Ellis was recovering from a
miscarriage and was on strong sedatives at the time of the murder, was
battling to clear her mother’s name, reducing her murder conviction to
manslaughter, when she died of cancer aged 50 in December 2001. The case
reached the Court of Appeal in 2003 but the the appeal was turned down
with the court stating it could only rule on the law as it stood in
1955.
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