Waiting to go into this production of Howard Brentons short, searing exploration of the nature of justice and retribution I witnessed the front of house staff refuse entry to a family who had two young children with them, a boy of about 14 and a girl of 10. My first instinct was that it was surely up to parents what their kids can and cant watch, but within five minutes of the show starting I had concluded the company was right.
Which gave me an interesting perspective on the show. It is deliberately and brutally shocking. It follows the interrogation of John Reginald Christie who gruesomely murdered several women in the 1940s and 50s and had sex with their dead bodies. Simply and cleverly staged, its a hard watch. Brenton is posing interesting questions. Chrisiie was undoubtedly a monster, but like many such killers what people commented on was his complete ordinariness. The play begins with a series of almost unbearably crude limericks from one of the policemen, which seem random and gratuitous, but Brenton is setting us up. As we watch the brutality of the investigation, one almost feels sorry for Christie and Brentons bleak hypothesis becomes clear arent we all capable of terrifying things? The general public is a filthy animal remarks one of the investigation officers.
All three performers are excellent, and the direction for the most part taut. The part of the women is taken by a life size rag doll, and its treatment by Christie is brutal and harrowing. But we hear from him and the other characters of other perversions, and the incredibly weird things that turn people on handbags, cats, pubic hairs. If Christies thing was dead women, is that his fault?
And here I come back to the family who were turned away. What Brenton seems to be saying is that all of us harbour desires and feelings which we keep secret. The question is, what tips some people over into acting on them. Christie was treated badly by his mother, but so are a lot of people. So should we censor and conceal things, especially from children, or would it be better if we had much more open debate. Would watching the show have really had an impact on the young minds of those two kids? A life changing impact? Christie was a child once. As was Hitler. And Stalin. With childish thoughts and innocent needs. What turned them into the monsters they became?
What Brenton is saying, is that the monster lurks in all of us, and can be released at any time. And that is a truly terrifying thought.
