The accused...

As you all know, whenever the opportunity presents itself I like to pretend that I am cultured and sophisticated and attend the theatre. Usually, Tiani and I go to see PLoT productions at uni, but occasionally we are even more cultured and sophisticated and attend grown-up theatre. On Tuesday evening, we did just that.


The Hobart Repertory Theatre Society were doing a production of the Jeffrey Archer play The Accused. The play is set in the Old Bailey courthouse in London and is presented as a murder trial with the audience acting as the jury. The only characters are the judge, a couple of court officials, the defendant, a policeman, and a few witnesses. The audience is greeted as the jury and briefed on how the case will run by one of the court officials and then as the judge enters the court room everybody stands (God save the Queen) and then sits when signaled. The case runs for three days (3 acts) so this process is repeated at the beginning of each act. It was so much fun to be interactively involved right from the beginning of the play. At the end of the case the jury, of course, gets to decide if the defendant was guilty of murdering his wife and the audience holds up guilty/not guilty cards to determine the verdict. There are two endings to the play depending on the verdict given by the audience. We, of course, only got to see one of the endings and I would love to know what the alternative ending was like.


Here is my review:
Acting - good (not perfect, but good).
Sets - very good
Costumes - very good
Casting - very good (except that I dont like the actor that played the defendant, but it didnt matter because he killed his wife so you're not really meant to like him).
Overall - loved it! Well worth going to see.

**** four stars