The Stage

Arthur and George

Published Wednesday 24 March 2010 at 16:15 by Pat Ashworth

This highly absorbing tale is drawn from the semi-fictional account of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s mission to get a free pardon for George Edalji, a Birmingham solicitor who served three years penal servitude for a horrific crime he did not commit.

Adrian Lukis (Arthur) and Chris Nayak (George) in Arthur & George at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre Photo: Tristram Kenton

Arthur is presented as a writer so dogged by his detective hero that he has killed him off in justifiable homicide. Adrian Lukis captures the great man to perfection. It’s a beautiful performance. He has a dry, Edinburgh edge to his voice, a studied nonchalance coupled with a fierce impatience, cultivated mannerisms and an arrogance that charms rather than alienates.

The two men are an unlikely combination. Chris Nayak brings out all the dignity and vulnerability of George, the precise, self-contained and endearingly humourless son of a Parsee clergyman father and a Shropshire mother. Their exchanges are a delight as Arthur tries to solve the case as Holmes would have done, while George knows the approach to be flawed.

The play uncomfortably exposes the overt and underlying racial tensions and prejudices of the Victorian age, the English distaste for “natives” and “half-castes”, police suspicions of “evil in the blood” and of men who aren’t engaged in “manly sport”.

It’s played out on the revolve in a misty, moody half-light, with a parade of Brummie no-goods and a charming love story between Arthur and the gently ascerbic Jean (Kirsty Hoiles), who wants more than friendship. A very intelligent play, getting its world premiere at the Rep before transferring to Nottingham.