Twelve men are locked in a sweltering jury room in New York City, and in the next hour or two their votes will decide whether or not to send a 16-year-old boy, charged with killing his father, to the electric chair.
His state-assigned defence lawyer has been incompetent, and already eleven jurors, not necessarily all good men and true, are convinced of his guilt, some more concerned to get away without further discussion in time for a local baseball fixture, another tortured by resentment against his own delinquent son.
Reginald Rose wrote his celebrated play in 1954 after serving on such a jury, and 70 years on it has lost none of its power. I was rivetted from beginning to end.
The accused, an abused boy from a deprived immigrant neighbourhood, never appears and we know the jury members only by their numbers. Eight, played with consummate nuance by Jason Merrells, is the only one initially to admit having reasonable doubt about the prosecution case.
The evidence is re-examined with the forensic scrutiny apparently absent from the trial itself, but the play is more about the clash of characters in the room, impartiality versus prejudice, reason versus racism.
Tempers rise in the stifling atmosphere, with Michael Greco (Seven), Gray O’Brien (Ten) and Tristan Gemmill (Three) among those to get hot under the collar, Gemmill in particular jabbing his fingers or raising his fists for lack of better argument.
There are no weak links in a strong cast that brings out the different characteristics of these randomly chosen individuals with their varied social backgrounds, among them Kenneth Jay as the beneficent watchmaker (Eleven). The New York accents never slip, with Mark Heenehan as the broker (Four) outstanding in his delivery.
Offenders under 18 are now exempt from execution in the United States and the play might be regarded as an affirmation of the jury system. On the other hand, with more than 2,300 prisoners on Death Row last year, one wonders if at least a few of them may have been condemned because someone was anxious to get to a ball game.
The play continues its UK and Ireland tour to Guildford, Windsor, Lichfield, Dublin, Cambridge, Blackpool, Wolverhampton and York.