I suppose it was going to be a bit of uphill struggle to portray a hot and stuffy meeting room in one of the plushest venues at the Fringe where the air conditioning was working just fine. An early punchline about there being no female jurors “because it’s 1958” wasn’t matched until a late rant about how a juror’s vegetarian son was an embarrassment to the family as they wouldn’t eat Thanksgiving turkey or any of the meat offerings at a barbecue. Effectively, it’s the same joke recycled: of course, it would be more reasonable to assume a vegetarian would be respected for their dietary choices these days, but back then…
The context was not quite used as an excuse to go all out on jokes that just wouldn’t land in the twenty-first century, though anyone with a feminist perspective will find much to take issue with here, given some stereotypical views expressed. But it was, at least to me, far more unfunny than remotely offensive. A suicide attempt by a juror’s relative is described as throwing herself out of the window, but as they had a ground floor apartment only superficial injuries were sustained. Funny? Nope.
I don’t think you need to have seen the film 12 Angry Men to follow proceedings in this show, seeing as they become so far removed from the plot of the motion picture. To be fair, I couldn’t have predicted how the show concluded, though the storyline became very convoluted, as jurors in a murder trial seemed to change their minds for almost any reason at all. Perhaps the point was to demonstrate the fickle nature of the human condition, though I doubt it, and it is even less likely the script was written with the desire to support recent moves by political leaders on Britain to substantially reduce the use of juries in court trials.
With a line up like this, the audience ought to have been (hopefully metaphorically) rolling on the floor laughing our heads off. The sum was not anywhere near greater than the sum of its parts. Joe Pasquale tap dances, because that’s apparently what you do when you’re a juror deliberating on a murder case. I quite liked Tom Slade’s exasperations at those who disagreed with him, and Ian Coppinger’s Juror 8, the ‘half’ man of the show’s title on account of being, ahem, vertically challenged, managed to get his own back on his fellow jurors. Unlike some characters in the show, we do not, at this publication, believe in sending anyone to the electric chair, though some revisions to the script, with better punchlines, wouldn’t go amiss. Some mildly chucklesome material was delivered with aplomb by a cast that deserved better.
Review by Chris Omaweng
It’s the hottest day of the year, a storm is brewing and 11½ angry men attempt to decide the fate of a boy accused of a heinous murder in 1950s New York City – when the world was ruled by furious white men… unlike today! The jurors would like to do the right thing and the evidence against the boy stinks, but they all have places to go and far more important issues on their minds. Will a lethal German sausage save him? Or send him sizzling to the electric chair? Needing a unanimous verdict, will they still find their way to a swift conviction?
Cast: David Calvitto, Glenn Wool, Ian Coppinger, JJ Whitehead, Joe Pasquale, Mark Maier, Owen O’Neill. Phil Nichol, Spencer Jones, Stephen K Amos, Terry Alderton, Tom Stade
Written by Owen O’Neill
Directed by Guy Masterson
11½ ANGRY MEN
5 to 22 August 2026
Pentland Theatre at Pleasance at Edinburgh International Conference Centre at the Edinburgh Fringe
