Inadmissible Evidence: Douglas Hodge and that Dr Who actress
18/10/2011
Inadmissible Evidence, the Donmar's latest production, is one of those plays that just flies from the outset. Blink and you miss it, so fast is the pace and the delivery that you've barely got time to enjoy all the delicious lines John Osbourne serves up through his protagonist, solicitor Bill Maitland (Douglas Hodge).
It starts with a mock court scene in which Maitland is on trial for what turns out to be crimes against his life. He condemns his own life as one of utter mediocrity. The play then follows him through the course of a day or two at his legal practice, the evidence I suppose for his condemnation during which he alienates himself from colleagues, family and lovers.
Maitland is full of self-loathing about what he sees as his failure in life, a trait that doesn't so much make him irascible as put him in a permanent state of anxious anger which manifests itself in almost constant movement and a witty stream of bile and self-deprecation. He is bored dealing with seedy divorces, dislikes his colleagues and his family and even questions the point of his philandering.
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