The Accused by Jeffrey Archer

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The Accused by Jeffrey Archer Crime, the courtroom, and theatre come together in this remarkably tense play by Jeffrey Archer, which uses the audience as one its most crucial components. Dr Patrick Sherwood (originally played by Lord Archer himself) is accused of murdering his wife using a lethal injection of a prescription drug. It’s thought that the drug was supplied by Sherwood’s lover, Nurse Jennifer Mitchell . Evidence is given by several of the play’s characters in turn, after which Sherwood himself takes the witness stand. Is he innocent or guilty? It is up to the audience to decide, and depending on which way they vote, the ending will go one way of two… The Accused premiered at the Theatre Royal, Windsor, in September 2000. ‘Interactive cliffhanger’ What’s On Stage Genre: tense courtroom drama Fee: £75 plus VAT, per performance Cast: m14 f2 Scripts: ISBN 9780413768407, £8.99 Set: Jury Room, Old Bailey Length: 3 acts Contact: [email protected] Extract Sherwood I did. Barrington Where were you that night, Mr Sherwood? Barrington So if it was signed at 10.27 pm, you would not have needed a more convincing alibib, as Ms Mitchell Sherwood I was out on an emergency call visiting a suggested. patient in Westminster. Sherwood Ms Mitchell seems to think I could have been Barrington So why isn’t that patient in court today to in two places at once. verify your story? Barrington Quite. So finally, let me ask you, Mr Sherwood Because he died later that night. Sherwood, how do you answer Ms Mitchell’s damning accusation that you used her as a courier over a period of Barrington And what was the time entered on the three months, to collect ampoules of Potassium Chloride death certificate? in order to poison your wife? Sherwood 10.27 pm. Sherwood Sir James, if I had wanted to poison my wife, I could have picked up any amount of drugs from the Barrington And who signed that death certificate? hospital pharmacy, without ever involving Ms Mitchell. If you enjoyed this, you might like: Albert’s Boy by James Graham (m2 f0) Early Birds by Leo Butler (m1 f1) Loot by Joe Orton (m2 f1) Please contact [email protected] for more details. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP http://www.bloomsbury.com .

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A Queer Aes- Thetic Is Suggested in the Nostalgia of Orton’S List of 1930S Singers, Many of Whom Were Sex- Ual Nonconformists
Orton in Deckchair in Tangier. Courtesy: Orton Collection at the University of Leicester, MS237/5/44 © Orton Estate Rebel playwright Joe Orton was part of a ‘cool customer’, Orton shopped for the landscape of the Swinging Sixties. clothes on Carnaby Street, wore ‘hipster Irreverent black comedies that satirised pants’ and looked – in his own words the Establishment, such as Entertaining – ‘way out’. Although he cast himself Mr Sloane (1964), Loot (1965) and as an iconoclast, Emma Parker suggests What the Butler Saw (first performed that Orton’s record collection reveals a in 1969), contributed to a new different side to the ruffian playwright counterculture. Orton’s representation who furiously pitched himself against of same-sex desire on stage, and polite society. The music that Orton candid account of queer life before listened to in private suggests the same decriminalisation in his posthumously queer ear, or homosexual sensibility, that published diaries, also made him a shaped his plays. Yet, stylistically, this gay icon. Part of the zeitgeist, he was music contradicts his cool public persona photographed with Twiggy, smoked and reputation for riotous dissent. marijuana with Paul McCartney and wrote a screenplay for The Beatles. Described by biographer John Lahr as A Q U E E R EAR Joe Orton and Music 44 Music was important to Joe Orton from an early age. His unpublished teenage diary, kept Issue 37 — Spring 2017 sporadically between 1949 and 1951, shows that he saved desperately for records in the face of poverty. He also lovingly designed and constructed a record cabinet out of wood from his gran’s old dresser.
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