Nine black boys in Alabama in 1931 were falsely convicted of raping two white women. The case of The Scottsboro Boys became notorious – racial bigotry at its most extreme. The guilty verdict was challenged by a New York Jewish attorney and by the American communist party but upheld in the south. Retrials kept coming and the four youngest of the nine were eventually released – two finding employment in a minstrel show at Harlem's Apollo theatre.
Inspired, perhaps, by this detail, John Kander and the late Fred Ebb (who brought us Cabaret and Chicago) turned the story into a 2010 Broadway hit which was nominated for 12 Tony awards. And now we have a London revival, and it's brilliant: it shakes, stirs and takes its sober subject for an unforgettable ride.
It begins with a woman who, by the end, we recognise to be civil rights activist Rosa Parks (Dawn Hope), sitting quietly with a cake box on her knee – a prison visitor. Then the theatre erupts as the Scottsboro boys run through the stalls, introducing themselves. It's thrilling to see the musical at the Young Vic because it lacks the traditional West End distance – the exuberance is intimate, with a mix of actors from the original cast and British additions. Julian Glover brings masterly subtlety to his role as a doddery Uncle Sam figure in charge of the minstrels, and he orders them to tell the tale of the Scottsboro boys. "Oh that's a funny story… not really…" one of them says.
In a trice, and with poles for props and tambourine wheels (design: Beowulf Boritt), we're on board the Chattanooga freight train where the boys bounce along. They wear flat caps but there's nothing flat about their singing. Exultant harmonies contrast with the direction their lives are taking.
The cast is dominated by the outstanding Kyle Scatliffe as Haywood Patterson – tall, commanding and with a hotline-to-heaven of a voice. The two white women are impersonated by black actors. Ruby (a riveting James T Lane) sports a silly little pink porkpie hat and spotty cummerbund worn over mannish black trousers and is especially outlandish, acrobatic and show-stealing in the song in which s/he reverses her original testimony: "It's never too late." It's an ingenious show that keeps you conscious of racial stereotyping: I've never seen white women played by black actors before.
Virtuoso director and choreographer Susan Stroman (responsible for The Producers) treads a fine line: this terrible story is entertainingly told yet never trivialised. There are no borders: anything can be a terrifying entertainment – even the song Electric Chair, accompanied by out-of-this-world tap-dancing. And there's a marvellous number, Make Friends With the Truth, in which shadows dance behind a screen like flickerings of conscience. But the darkest moment is when New York lawyer Samuel Leibowitz (riveting Forrest McClendon) spells out to Haywood Patterson: "You are guilty because of the way you look." Truth may be celebrated here but this show recognises that it does not always set you free.
In Middlemarch, George Eliot describes Dorothea as having a passion "transfused through a mind struggling towards an ideal life". She adds that the "radiance of her transformed girlhood fell on the first object that came within its level". Georgina Strawson's wonderful performance in Dorothea's Story embodies this idea. A graceful figure in her lichen-coloured frock, there is a radiance about her that only serves to highlight her colossal error in coffining herself in marriage to Casaubon. This production emphasises that Dorothea's undiscriminating readiness to assume intellect in others mars her own intelligence. Jamie Newall's finely judged Casaubon has a funereal aridity throughout. Daisy Ashford's delicious Celia combines common sense with the freshness of an ingénue.
Christopher Ettridge's Mr Brooke is garrulously sympathetic, Christopher Naylor's Sir James Chettam is a plausible toff and Ben Lambert's Will Ladislaw looks and sounds the romantic lead.
Geoffrey Beevers's skilful, shrewd and dashing adaptation lifts Dorothea's Story clear of the rest of the novel. The directing is spare, elegant and edited: there are moments when one feels one is speed-reading. Sam Dowson's set is discreet, with a twisting vine round the gallery and a handful of balloon-back chairs. Unlike a Shared Experience production, there's not much physical innovation (though the imaginary horse and carriage are charming). The greatest pleasure is the way Eliot's writing is celebrated as characters about-turn to comment upon themselves. The production is almost three hours long, the first of an ambitious trilogy and, already, a phenomenal achievement for this small theatre.
The Welsh cottage in which Raving takes place (convincingly designed by Jonathan Fensom) is cheap'n'cheerless with rough stone walls and a loo door that keeps slamming into the weekenders hoping to nip behind it. Through its front door you glimpse rainy Welsh hills.
Simon Paisley Day is an actor whose first foray as a playwright feels as if he has been writing this sort of material for years. In that sense, it's an achievement. But by the same token it seems dated, and I was dismayed to think that Hampstead theatre is still drawn to sitcoms about middle-class couples and their footling woes.
I was in a minority: the show, directed with aplomb by Edward Hall, got lots of laughs. Three couples – socialist, liberal and conservative – are, with schematic improbability, under the same roof with predictable clashes.
Tamzin Outhwaite is Briony, a neurotic, leftwing teacher. Her husband, Keith (Barnaby Kay), is a bearded weirdo whose favourite tipple is the breast milk his wife is expressing for their absent three-year-old (a gag to make you gag). Robert Webb's Ross and Sarah Hadland's Rosy convince as cringe-making liberals. Charles (Nicholas Rowe) and Serena (Issy Van Randwyck) are a huntin', shootin', swearin' couple, and sportingly acted. But their daughter – druggy, promiscuous, foul-mouthed 17-year-old Tabby (Bel Powley) – is a stock character. She makes you want to lob a new word at her creator: teenageist.
Star ratings (out of 5):
The Scottsboro Boys ★★★★★
Middlemarch ★★★★
Raving ★★
