****
I
like my murderers, mainly Victorian and Edwardian I hasten to add. They are
part of our rich history. And I like my murderesses even more. Adelaide
Bartlett, even though she got off, Mrs Maybrick, Madeleine Smith. All had
poisonous charm. Literally. Ruth Ellis, hanged for a murder she definitely did,
does not have their appeal but any dramatisation of an old famous murder case
will get my theatrical juices racing. Which probably explains why I tootled
along to Barn Theatre’s The Thrill of Love
for a long overdue review. Amanda Whittington’s play does not have the
emotional grip of Rattigan’s Cause
Celebre or the heartrending impact of A
Pin to see the Peepshow, dramatisations
of famous murder cases, but it nevertheless made for a pretty absorbing couple
of hours.
Ruth
Ellis is one of those who, if she had not tragically existed, someone would
have made her up. Stuck between the dying days of post war fifties poverty and
the beckoning swinging sixties she lived life to the full. Blasting away her
hedonistic and brutal lover on an open London street she immortally died on the
gallows for it. I say immortally because not only was she the last woman this
country hanged but her execution was a complete travesty of English justice.
Mrs Ellis may have believed she deserved to die, but judged from the twenty
first century no one else thinks so. Like some before her, Ruth Ellis remains
an immutable stain on the British justice system.
Well,
now I have got that off my chest what did I think of it. Barn’s production that
is. I mean, this is a theatrical blog not a personal rant on the past failures
of our beloved legal system. Clearly I am out of practice. Or is it practise, I
never know. Illiterate that I am. But even illiterates can see it ain’t easy
telling the tale of Ruth Ellis. There are so many facts, so many characters, so
many people and incidents who accompanied Mrs Ellis on her fateful journey. The
man whose name she took, the night club owner who introduced her to the highs
and lows of London life, the wannabe starlet who tragically died in a car
crash. The beatings, the babies, the abortions. And the men. Etched in her
personal tragedy. David Blakeley, racing driver friend of the more famous Mike
Hawthorn and total public schoolboy shit. At least where women were concerned
until six bullets shut him up. And Desmond Cussen, shadowy alternative lover
and gun supplier to Ellis. So it is said. So many facts, so much to say. So
much to explain. It is always the case when a rope is going around a neck. Especially
when it is the neck of a pretty peroxide blonde night club hostess rich in
emotions but short on control.
Strict
literal dramatisation or straight, dry and forensic, courtroom drama are
options Amanda Whittington probably considered and dismissed. I am guessing
here but that has never stopped me in the past. Theatrically cheaper is to get
a few actors, characters and composite characters, to tell the tragic tale in a
series of simply staged scenes. It generally worked, even if in the first act I
was yearning for more dramatic punch, and gradually a life gleaned from statements,
police reports, and courtroom evidence emerged. By the end, particularly in an
emotionally strong scene when Ruth Ellis is visited in Holloway prison by her
female associates, the enormity and the futility of what she has done is writ
large. Here was a woman destroyed by men, first those in her desolate life and
then the ones in a legal system failing to understand it. ‘When you fired that revolver into David Blakeley what did you intend
to do?’ With her answer ‘It’s
obvious, I intended to kill him.’ she ensured her place in history.
Georgina
Bennett was an impressive Ruth Ellis and touches of vulnerability were effectively
mixed with feisty fragility. If heavy spectacles slightly marred my iconic
image of this tragic figure I can see why they were used. She was given
commendable if quirky support by Josie Matthews (actress and model) and Kat
Peacock (charwoman) and, notably, Natalie Gordon (nightclub manageress) as a
hard hitting, hard drinking, woman who had seen it all. And as that all came
frighteningly apart Miss Gordon’s character wondered at the senselessness of
it. All were ciphers for the telling of Ellis’s story as was Clive Weatherley
in the sole male role of Detective Inspector. Mixing narrator and chorus Mr
Weatherley knitted the tale with skill and watchability. His was the voice of
all who think Ruth Ellis was a wasted life.
I reckon director Jon Brown did a pretty
faithful job of Amanda Whittington’s interpretation. Simple and effective
locations with minimal props moved by the cast. I didn’t particularly like the
jokey judge, the style jarred with the second act mood, but that is neither the
fault of the actress or the director. It’s in the script milord. As I assume
were the heavy glasses. They were taken off by Ruth Ellis as she went to the
gallows. To the tune of ‘I’ll be seeing
you.’ And anyone who ends a play like this with that song is doing pretty
well in my book. Pierrepoint, the hangman, said that executing Ruth Ellis was
an act of society’s revenge. I doubt if many, watching this, would disagree
with him. Roy Hall
