Twelve Angry Men

Assembly Rooms

Brian Logan
Tuesday August 5, 2003
The Guardian

It's box-office gold dust: cast a clutch of popular comedians in a famous crowd-pleasing play and watch the tickets shift. And the punters' money has been pretty well spent in this case. Reginald Rose's 50-year-old courtroom drama is such a well-made vehicle, it'll get to its destination even if the drivers are unqualified. Happily, director Guy Masterson's stand-up cast (plus one or two theatre veterans) apply themselves with impressive intensity.

The play, in which 12 jurors decide the fate of a youth charged with killing his dad, hangs on its simple frame a wealth of insights into justice and human nature. You're ensnared immediately, when Juror 8 (Owen O'Neill) stands alone in defence of the accused. As his characters get ever hotter under their starched collars, Rose shows how jury justice is inescapably a matter of psychology and prejudice. "This isn't an exact science," says Juror 3, even less so when the defendant (in what seems to have been a slapdash trial) can't pay his lawyer enough to give a damn.

There are a couple of shaky accents, and one or two underpowered turns. O'Neill has a limited range as the play's crusading hero. But the pose he strikes, of dogged liberal open-mindedness, is convincing. Bill Bailey plays brilliantly against type as the clipped, authoritative Juror 4, while the role of Juror 10 offers Canadian stand-up Phil Nichol the most appropriate forum yet for his trademark volcanic rage. This is no crime against theatre: Masterson's stand-ups have done Twelve Angry Men justice.

· Until August 25. Box office: 0131-226 2428.