BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT. To 27 May.

Nottingham

BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT
by Jeffrey Archer

Theatre Royal To 27 May 2006
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed 2pm, Sat 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 15min One interval

TICKETS 0115 989 5555
www.royalcentre-nottingham.co.uk
Review: Alan Geary: 22 May 2006

Leslie Grantham’s woefully miscast but Simon Ward shines in what is actually not a bad thriller.
The two big disappointments in an otherwise entertaining production of what is actually not a bad thriller are the slushily over-melodramatic lines at the very end and Leslie Grantham as Sir David Metcalfe QC.

Saying more about the former would give the game away; saying more about the latter is a melancholy duty.

It might be colossally inept casting, but not once does Grantham convince he’s an eminent barrister, Chairman of the Bar Council no less. Nor do we get the impression he has any kind of relationship with Lady Metcalfe (Alexandra Bastedo); whatever this relationship’s supposed to be at different points in the play, he always seems detached from and indifferent to her.

Sir David is supposed to have worked his way up, via Oxford, from the Welsh valleys, but speaks fluent estuary English. His movements are camp, recalling all the time a seedy Max Miller: he ought to be wearing loud check instead of pinstripes.

Bastedo, with that astonishingly beautiful bone structure, is fine. She speaks with strangulated refinement and moves in a way entirely appropriate to a terminally-ill woman putting up a brave front.

But acting honours go to Simon Ward, as Anthony Blair-Booth QC (the allusion to number 10 is undoubtedly coincidental). He’s every inch a mobile-faced celebrity barrister of the old school with a lot of the Ken Clarks about him. Ward has a lovely moment when B-B’s performance during cross-examination is interrupted in full flow by a riposte from Metcalfe, exposing a personal weakness behind the histrionics.

Some of this play’s watchability lies in the fact that Act l is set in a courtroom - a trial is intrinsically dramatic - with the audience as jury. Graham Ashe could be accused of playing the Judge in a clichéd way - he’s querulous and he fusses for his reading glasses whenever he consults his notes - but it’s supposed to be funny; and, anyway, judges parody themselves in life.

A wonderful touch is supplied by Elsbeth Benjafield. Tapping away as the non-speaking Stenographer she’s sufficiently authentic and icily efficient to put the wind up anybody.

Court Usher: Robert Merchill
Clerk of the Court: Phil Gerard
Mr Justice Tredwell: Graham Ashe
Anthony Blair-Booth QC: Simon Ward
Detective Chief Inspector Travers: Andrew Ramsey
Sir David Metcalfe QC: Leslie Grantham
Mrs Rodgers: Maggie Stables
Dr Weedon: Keith Myers
Lionel Hamilton: Graham James
Mr Cole: Tony Kavanagh
Robert Pierson: Jay Marcus
Stenographer: Elsbeth Benjafield
Lady Metcalfe: Alexandra Bastedo

Director: Roger Redfarn
Designer: Christopher Woods
Lighting: John Port

2006-05-24 16:32:51