Jeffrey Archer's Prison Diary. To To 29 August.

Edinburgh

JEFFREY ARCHER'S PRISON DIARY.

Smirnoff Underbelly (Iron Belly) To 29 August 2004
Mon-Sun 5.30pm
Runs 1hr No interval

TICKETS: 0870 745 3083
Review: Timothy Ramsden 20 August

Jeffrey Archer's often treated as a joke - what this show demonstrates from his prison diary is nothing to laugh about.I first learned of Jeffrey Archer's prison sentence for perjury from Roy Hattersley, who announced it in Buxton to a cabin containing writer Sue Townsend, me and quite possibly some other people. I have to say Lord Roy seemed quite happy about Lord Jeff's impending 4-year come-uppance.
I cannot speak for Ms Townsend.

But for myself, I think it's far too easy to mock Jeffrey Archer. Indeed, I was once handed one of his novels and was some way into the second sentence before coming across stylistic inadequacies. Yet, according to this piece, his creative writing sessions went down a storm with the top-security prisoners at Bellmarsh, where his incarcerated Lordship spent the first 3 weeks of a sentence longer than any he had ever penned himself.

Known to friends for his generosity, Archer not only gave PWP and Bigfoot Theatre Company permission to use his published diary, he donated his 'Tigger' rugby shirt for Andrew Macbean to wear in his portrayal of the shepherd-pie-and-champagne- loving prisoner.

In this diary, Archer reveals a lot of himself - and not only physically, for he has to stand naked for inspection on entering prison. As a splendidly-chosen last sentence makes clear, there's a way of thinking which prisoners and their visitors develop to survive and outwit their guards that most of us do not begin to comprehend.

More comprehensible is the level at which survival operates. Discovering the glutinous, indigestible mix that passes for shepherd's pie (his favourite, ironically given the links to Mayfair's Shepherd's Market in the equally coagulated background to his conviction) is one bump against reality. Desperately waiting for the prison fixer to get him another bottle of Highland Spring water as he nears the bottom of his current one, is another.

You won't find a fine mind here. There's no more self-pity than anyone not inured to prison culture might express, and Archer's moral stature may well be measured by investigating how many of the promises to fellow-prisoners, and to himself to expose aspects of the prison system, he has followed through.

But there's none of the probing analysis, of the individual mind, of the human mind in general or of society that great prison diaries provide.

What there is, and what this adaptation vividly portrays, is the variety of life in a high-security jail. One tough inmate tells Archer that his Lordship represents everything the prisoner hates - but "don't take it personally". Others bring tentatively-written prison journals, and in one case a memoir of serial abuse by adults that, yes, everyone ought to read before pronouncing on society and crime.

There's the 'listener' - a prisoner posted to supprt new inmates acclimatise - who accepts he'll kill himself in prison, but hasn't decided when: it's the final choice life has left him.

Around Macbean's tactful, upright Archer, the other cast members weave an interlinked series of prisoners and staff with unsensational clarity.

The other element of this play is the destructive nature of the press, offering money for revelations from fellow-prisoners, then blackmailing their families with threats of publicising the men's crimes. The prisoners' solidarity with Archer is amazing - only one seems to fall for the offer, and he's left in no doubt it wouldn't be a good idea. (in parallel solidarity, one Archer fan offers to have a prosecution witness done over).

By taking Archer's diaries seriously, this production may expose the limits of the writer's sensibility, but it produces (fittingly for this venue) a gripping picture of society's underbelly, at once more varied than many will think it, and crying out for reform.

Cast: Andrew Macbean, Redd Pepper, Karen Clayton, James Rayment

Director: James Rayment
Assistant director: Scott Young

2004-08-21 11:55:09