“IT’S a classic for a reason,” says Gray O’Brien, who heads the cast of courtroom drama Twelve Angry Men - back in session for a UK tour.
Gray O'Brien says his juror 'believes in honesty and justice' (Image: Manuel Harlan)
Of Reginald Rose’s script, he says, “It’s so cleverly written, it unfolds in real time, which makes it a very dynamic piece of theatre. It’s full of suspense and it’s a real ensemble piece. You don’t get many opportunities like this where you have 12 actors on stage all the time, all of whom have a moment.”
When American playwright Rose penned the teleplay in 1954 for a live anthology TV series, it was highly praised by critics. It was turned into a 1955 stage play, then Sidney Lumet directed the 1957 film, nominated for three Oscars.
Bill Kenwright Ltd’s stage revival has been similarly acclaimed, with one review declaring it “holds the audience in a vice-like grip” as the 12 jurymen of the title are holed up in a room to decide the fate of a young delinquent accused of killing his father.
A tense scene in the play, which follows a jury trying to reach a verdict on a murder trial
Best known for playing Tony Gordon in Coronation Street, Gray plays Juror #8. “He decides early on that he can’t just raise his hand and say this boy is guilty without hearing the facts. He’s an architect, a thinker, who believes in justice. He wonders if this 16-year-old boy could possibly have committed the crime he’s been accused of,” says Gray.
As the jurors muse over what initially seems an open-and-shut case, prejudices about the accused’s skin colour begin to surface. Gray says it makes the play just as timely as when Rose wrote it more than 70 years ago: “In every city in England and around the world, there’s so much civil unrest, bigotry and racism.”
The production puts its cast through their paces. “We don’t leave the stage,” Gray points out. “There are no scenery changes; it’s just 12 men thrashing things out. It’s intense but that’s the joy of stage work.”
Gray’s fellow Corrie alumnus Bill Ward, who plays Juror #3, agrees: “I’ve been lucky enough to do a lot of television but nearly 60 plays and musicals. You can’t beat the shared experience between actors and audience.”
'This play is about 12 men in a box,' says Bill Ward (Image: Manuel Harlan)
Bill’s character is “passionate and committed and in search of the truth - or the truth as he thinks it is. He’s quite volatile but only because he thinks he’s right and he doesn’t like it when people contradict him.”
Bill was drawn to the play because it’s timeless: “A lot of the issues it deals with are still very current today in terms of prejudice, unconscious bias and racism.”
He’s a fan of the Lumet film and says the stage version has a similarly claustrophobic feel: “It’s all set in one location, so you’ve got 12 humans locked in a room, they can’t leave until they come to a unanimous verdict one way or the other. Rose referred to it as being about 12 men in a box and that’s what it is.”
He believes it’s a similar experience for the audience: “You’re in there with these men, deliberating over what the truth is. You hear the evidence in the same way they hear the evidence. You’re working it out as you go along.”
Ricky Norwood, Juror#7, says: “It is filled with tension, it’s filled with questions, and it keeps you on edge from the start. You’re taken from one character to another as they debate whether this young man is guilty or not guilty.”
Ricky Norwood's character is a joker, but gets intense (Image: Manuel Harlan)
Juror #7 is a salesman, a baseball fanatic and a man in a hurry. “He wants to get out of the jury room as soon as possible,” says Rich, “He’s a bit of a joker, a fantastic character to play because he gets really dark and intense.”
Having shot to fame as Fatboy in EastEnders, he adds: “Most of the roles I play are quite funny, but this guy’s comedy comes from his personality rather than just cracking jokes.”
Ricky says the play prompts a lot of questions: “A lot of the time we just take the headline, but this asks questions I think we as a society need to start asking. It punches you in the gut and in your heart and soul because, as Bill says, as an audience member you’re going through it too.”
Returning to the production is Tristan Gemmill, star of TV’s Casualty. He played Juror #3 previously, now he’s Juror #10.
He says: “In a room full of angry men, he’s probably the angriest. He doesn’t really have any redeeming features. He’s prejudiced and bigoted, and he’s decided the defendant is guilty primarily because he’s from a different racial group. He believes the kid should receive the death sentence.
“Prejudice takes different forms, sometimes it’s more nuanced, but with him there’s no nuance. He’s this spiky presence - an unpleasant side noise that keeps buzzing away at the others. I see him as a disruptor of the flow of justice.”
He says of the play: “It’s meticulous in its build-up and the way it drip feeds information. There are 12 men in a room and it’s like the audience is in with them. But they haven’t seen the trial, they have to pick up on the facts from conversations between the jurors.”
Ben Nealon plays Juror #12, who works in advertising, as Rose did before his writing career took off. “He’s flashy at first, but his moral resolve is tested because he can’t make his mind up about the accused. He flips one way, then the other, and starts to question everything he believes in.”
Completing the cast are Paul Beech, Graham Elwell, Jeffrey Harmer, Mark Heenehan, Kenneth Jay, Paul Lavers, Owen Oldroyd and Micquel Pereira.
Ben says Twelve Angry Men challenges preconceptions: “It asks people to examine their belief systems, just as the characters are forced to face up to their beliefs and prejudices. In this day and age it’s important to question everything. There’s so much ‘information’ out there that is actually pretty dubious. This story is about not simply accepting everything that’s thrown at you. While it was written in the 1950s that makes it maybe more relevant now than it ever was.”
* Twelve Angry Men runs at the Alhambra from October 27-31. Call (01274) 432000 or visit bradford-theatres.co.uk