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Called To Account
Tricycle Theatre, London
Michael Billington
Tuesday April 24, 2007 (Guardian)


Thomas Wheatley as Philippe Sands QC and Diane Fletcher
as Clare Short MP in Called to Account. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

The wheel comes full circle. Having initiated its own form of tribunal theatre in 1994 with the Scott Arms to Iraq inquiry, the Tricycle now asks whether Tony Blair should be indicted for the crime of aggression against Iraq. And, although the theatre has created its own judicial hearing, Richard Norton-Taylor's edited version of it is as urgent and compelling as all his previous pieces of verbatim theatre. What is impressive is the way the gravest of issues is handled with such forensic sobriety. No voices are raised. No one shouts "war criminal". We see a patient, detailed search for truth in which 11 witnesses are cross-examined by prosecution and defence counsels. Even an earlier notion of asking the audience to vote has been abandoned: rightly so, in my opinion, since it avoids any suspicion of a kangaroo court. William Hoyland: a 'drily ironic senior civil servant' in Called To Account. Photograph: Tristram Kenton Not that there is any real danger of that since Norton-Taylor and his director, Nicolas Kent, allow a variety of voices to be heard. The first witness we encounter is a Kurdish exile who graphically describes Iraqi torture and who tellingly remarks that "Saddam Hussein was our weapon of mass destruction". Later we hear from Richard Perle who worked under Reagan and Bush and who, while deploring the failures of the American administration, sticks adamantly to his line that regime change was a valid option. But the real questions are those surrounding Tony Blair. And four key issues are stated by the prosecution from the outset. What was his purpose in the use of force against Iraq? When did he commit himself to force? Did he manipulate the presentation of the evidence on WMD? And did he disregard evidence that would have been unhelpful to his case, especially legal advice? And, as we hear the mass of evidence, the doubts accumulate about his probity. Tony Blair visiting troups in Iraq. The really murky issue is that of securing legal sanctions for the war. On March 7 2003 the attorney general says that military intervention will only be justified if there are "strong factual grounds" for concluding that Iraq has failed to comply with UN resolutions. By March 17 his doubts have hardened into certainties and he gives the war legal authorisation. What happened, one wonders, in the interim? But at least the theatre has now called Blair to account. And, even if you conclude there is insufficient "hard evidence" to justify Blair's indictment, there is no doubt about the evening's importance. It is also made all the better by the methodical quietness of Kent's production and by the performances of Thomas Wheatley and David Michaels as the prosecution and defence counsels. As the various witnesses, Diane Fletcher as Clare Short, Roland Oliver as Michael Mates, Raad Rawi as the Kurdish Shirwan al-Mufti and William Hoyland as a drily ironic senior civil servant are outstanding. The result is not a show trial. It is a forensic examination of the evidence that confirms Clare Short's observation that "people in Britain have lost their faith in political institutions partly because of all this". pic credit William Hoyland: a 'drily ironic senior civil servant' in Called To Account. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

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