It seems perhaps fitting that Stockwell should come to rest in Kilburn. The Tricycle is, after all, the proud originating home of the "tribunal" drama, of which this taut and excellent 90 minutes that previously played to sold-out houses at the Landor Theatre in Clapham is another fine example.
Where the Tricycle has previously gone with edited verbatim accounts from inquests into the likes of Bloody Sunday and the murder of Stephen Lawrence, so went the Landor with the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.
We’re probably all familiar with the sad facts of this case by now. On the morning of 22 July 2005, this 27-year-old Brazilian, who worked in London as an electrician, was shot nine times by two specialist firearms officers at Stockwell Tube station.
They had mistaken him for one of the would-be suicide bombers who had failed in their attempt to create carnage on the Underground network the previous day.
What the rigid discipline of the inquest/verbatim formula can only partially begin to capture is the frenzied climate of fear pervasive in the capital throughout the month that had, of course, already witnessed the devastation of 7/7. What if that faulty intelligence had been correct, and police dithering had led to further loss of life?
Kieron Barry’s sharp, sleek script, however, hasn’t got time to deal with what-ifs, as it elegantly boils down 10 weeks of inquest into 30 characters played by just eight spot-on actors.
Slickly directed by Sophie Lifschutz, the piece attains the gripping, sickening momentum of a thriller. It edges, via the accounts of eyewitnesses and multiple members of the surveillance and firearms divisions, towards the split-second decision to shoot that the officers, who had been sent out on the mission without a photograph of their intended suspect, had to take on the tube platform.
From the remorse they show, there seems little doubt but that these were decent men let down by a series of operational failures, but that doesn’t stop Jack Klaff as Michael Mansfield QC, the counsel for the de Menezes family, coming over all Jeremy Paxman with his sardonic cross-examination techniques.
The jury eventually returned an open verdict, a conclusion that Barry and his team uphold with dignity.
Until 20 September. Information: 020 7328 1000. www.tricycle.co.uk
Stockwell
Tricycle Theatre
Kilburn High Road, NW6 7JR
