11 men (and a man so short he only counts as half) form the members of the jury in this parody of the 1957 classic film 12 Angry Men. In this remake, the premise of the original film is flipped upside down, with all but one of the jury members starting with believing a young boy is not guilty of the murder of his father, and eventually being manipulated into voting the opposite.
This play also has a comedic spin; the son is a vegetarian that is said to have killed his father by choking him with a sausage. Although this was an interesting idea, many of the jokes relating to this did not land as intended, with them only occasionally producing a few giggles from the audience. This could have been partly because of the sound of the venue; the cast members’ voices were not amplified especially loudly, meaning some lines were difficult to decipher.
Despite this, the cast itself was remarkable, consisting of an impressive line-up of comedians who were both incredibly skilled in bouncing off each other’s lines on stage, and in convincingly embodying the various personalities of the jury members. Their chemistry was undeniably amusing to watch, as their characters cut across each other and argued in frustration.
The shortcoming of the comedic element of the play would have been overshadowed if the plot itself was more developed. The change in plot from the original movie did not add much to to the story and instead removed depth of characters, as jury members were swayed by unconvincing arguments and for mainly one reason; due to their own selfishness. This may have formed part of the comedic goal, but was failed due to a script that did not gel well enough to support this idea.
11 ½ Angry Men was still undoubtably an entertaining show about the power of human dialogue and on the clashes of values of different men, but unfortunately was not as funny as it promised to be and does not develop the key theme of morality or make any other stronger point. It is helpful to approach this show not as a comparison to the original film but simply as a fun remake of it.
11 ½ Angry Men is running until 22 August at Pentland Theatre at Pleasance at EICC. Buy tickets here.
Image provided by Pleasance Press Office for press use.
