In 1954 Manhattan activist and screenwriter Reginald Rose wrote a film for TV. Inspired by personal experience, it was called 12 Angry Men. It went on to stages around the world and in languages from German to Hindi, Chinese and Japanese. In 1957 it found a home on Hollywood’s big screen, where The American Film Institute has called it the “42nd-most inspiring film, the 88th-most heart-pounding film and the 87th-best film of the past hundred years”. Oh yes.
It has soaked up TV homage from such icons as The Odd Couple, Happy Days and even Murder She Wrote and even parody from Family Guy.
It has, it would seem, a unique immortality.
Twenty-three years ago, as America launched its war on Iraq, Concorde completed its final commercial flight, and Apple launched iTunes, in Edinburgh a dozen high profile comedians and a multi-award-winning Welshman made it their own. It launched a whole new genre of theatre with comics going ‘straight’ and opened important Stage Doors for many of the various casts.
Now Owen O’Neill – driving force behind the original production – has written a new, spoof, version for this year’s Fringe. And Guy Masterson is again producing and directing. At the risk of sounding negative, “Why?”, I ask.
“We wanted to do it for the 20th anniversary” says Owen, “to get all the band together again. But we couldn’t because Bill Kenwright wouldn’t give us the rights for Edinburgh”. Cue much disappointment. But you do not stop Owen O’Neill and Guy Masterson as easily as that.
“So then I thought ‘oh you know, hold on what about if I write a spoof?’ says Owen. Interesting thought. “I have a very emotional attachment to this play, I know it inside out and I love it.” he says, I’ve kept the structure of it and it’s not completely sort of off the wall spoof ’cause that that really isn’t my style”
But an interesting way to get around a rights issue. And what was good enough for Homer Simpson…
The setting remains the same. And the plot?
“I mean it doesn’t have you know a message but I suppose if there is anything in it it’s like what happens when you get 12 egos together in one room and they’re trying to solve a problem. Well you know you’re up shit creek straight away as proved around the world. So umm, it’s all about the men’s egos really.
Or, as Guy Masterson puts it: “The whole world is fucked up by late middle-aged white people, who will sell you down the river to get what they want.”
Quite the most wonderful thing, for me, is the sheer enthusiasm of a cast, none of whom is exactly scraping the bottom of the entertainment barrel for work. Their drive – along with Masterson (who is footing the upfront costs – to make this happen, extends to forgoing any fee and taking only a small slice of the back end if the show makes a profit. That is impressive.
Not all of the original cast were available, but then the juror characters are not exactly the originals either.
“Well they’re not the same characters, wouldn’t have said.” says Owen. “I mean they’re kind of based on them”
Juror 12, for example, this time played by O’Neill himself, is a cowboy.
“I based him on Jon Voight in a Midnight Cowboy,” he says, and gives me a quick preview: “Like wow I’m in New York City Yeah man this is really something else!”
To be fair, Owen might need to work on the accent a bit. “He might be gay” adds Owen – obviously looking to stretch his acting skills – “he drops a lot of hints”.
Another of the cast working outside his usual parameters is Stephen K Amos.
“I’m not actually black” says Amos, of his character. News, I think, for us all.
“See that’s what I love about Steven!” says Owen “I know all these guys I worked with them before, I know how they think and that’s great. I love that statement”
Amos plays the posh, English jury foreman (of ethnicity which is simply never mentioned) who, according to O’Neill, hates Americans.
Then there is Joe Pasquale. “I didn’t really know Joe Pasquale” admits Owen, “but the name kind of conjures up sort of old-fashioned comedy. And then I when I met him, he just was completely into the play”. Pasquale has, apparently, seized the chance to come out of his “comfort zone” like a fighting bear being given a chance to dance.
Yet again, a cast used to squeezing laughs out of every audience like O negative from a pile of stones are being told to play it straight.
Amos was in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’, and remembers people were worried that comics and their egos would just run riot over the piece “Guy just kept saying trust the script, trust the script”, But, I ask O’Neill, does it not become more difficult to ‘rein in’ comics if that script is in fact a comic script ?
“I don’t think so” he says, “because you know they’re professionals. We did do a read through and I said “look guys we have to play this completely straight like a straight drama otherwise it will not work”
Guy Masterson – who will be Head of Reining In – describes the style as “dead straight, with surreal moments”. Owen is initially perplexed by the description but concedes there is some “tapdancing on a table”. And a german sausage.
Guy also uttered the words “biting satire”, I tell Owen. He hoots with laughter. “No it it isn’t biting satire I’m telling you right now. Don’t put that because people will be saying well I was waiting for the biting satire and it didn’t come.” You heard it here first. “At its core is just a comedy. I mean we’re just having a bit of fun. Really good fun at the Fringe “
11 1/2Angry Men, 14.30 Pleasance @ EICC, August 5 – 22
