To Kill a Mockingbird
Wyndham Theatre, London
⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

THE latest production of To Kill a Mockingbird has prescient timing, coming as the darker forces of violence and racism are very much on the move in Trump’s US. The scenes dramatically brought to life in this play reminds all of how close to the abyss things have become.

Previous incarnations of the play have had the luxury of a feeling of looking back, that things aren’t as bad now as then. That no-one could fall into that trap now. But in Trump’s US the lynch-mob mentality has been emboldened, and is out on the streets in official and unofficial guises.

The central character of Atticus Finch is played to great effect by Richard Coyle. The moral, yet vulnerable man, multilayered, rather than simply good versus evil. He and the children Scout Finch (Anna Munden), Jem Finch (Gabriel Scott) and Dill Harris (Dylan Malyn) hold the narrative together. The whole episode is set over one summer.

This adaptation by Aaron Sorkin brings the black characters very much into the foreground. In the original 1960 Harper Lee book, and then film, they were silent victims, and appreciative of Atticus and the good whites. In this version, however, housekeeper Calpurnia (Andrea Davy) voices the anger. She is critical of Atticus with his, at times, patronising ways, expecting gratitude.

It is Calpurnia who breaks the reasoned tone of Atticus, when the news of the death of Tom Robinson comes through. She allocates blame to the jurors, who returned guilty verdicts, as “monsters” in the court room and “murderers” outside.

Another element making this a more contemporaneous account is the role of the abusive father Bob Ewell. Played brilliantly by Oscar Pearce, the voice of the angry, disempowered white man in America rings out. The supremacist message that the white man built America and Europe, yet he is the one now under threat — the new oppressed minority! Atticus is not only the lawyer defending a black man but the epitome of everything that Ewell despises and blames for his own situation. “You’re not one of us,” is a memorable line.

Director Bartlett Sher ensures the right tempo throughout, dark forces at play, yet also much virtue and quite a bit of humour.

On set there is slick switching between the courtroom and the Finch house. The design is very good, enabling a seamless flow in proceedings.

One possible fault would be the transition from the court scene, verdict and the death of Robinson to the later action involving the attack on the children and saviour role of Boo Radley. This passage has a slightly disjointed feel.

Overall, though, this is an excellent production, well worth seeing. The way in which the original book has been brought up to date to resonate with the US today makes it particularly poignant. There is also a clear warning as to where things are headed, if the divisions now widening in society, are not healed soon.

Runs till September 12. Box Office: 0344 482 5151, wyndhamstheatre.co.uk