BWW Interviews: DEATH AND THE MAIDEN's Tom Goodman-Hill

Hi Tom! Welcome to BWW:UK - you're currently coming to the end of rehearsals for Death and the Maiden.

Yes, this is our last day of rehearsals, we start tech on Monday. It's great, it's going fantastically. It's funny, when you're rehearsing a comedy, it's very hard; you're very serious, and you're concentrating on how to deliver the line and how to get the laugh; but when you're rehearsing a thriller like this you laugh your head off. You need to laugh! There's humour in the script, but it's buried - it's very dark, it's deep.

Tell us a bit about the play.

It's an absolutely brilliant thriller. It's a classic whodunit - in fact, not even that, but a did he do it. It's constructed that way, so you have to allow it to come at you; each scene is just perfect. At its heart there are basic questions about human law, innocence, questions about the death penalty, and whether there should be vengeance in the justice system - which of course there shouldn't be.

It sounds like it's a very timely play for revival - with the discussion around how the Human Rights Act affects the UK justice system and "CatGate", the release of Amanda Knox, the execution of Troy Davis...

Absolutely - it deals with all those issues around the Human Rights Act, and at the heart of it is a refugee from South America.

You must have had to think quite seriously about your opinions on these issues of justice.

It smacks you in the face with those questions. I'm sure I wouldn't change my opinion, as sure as I can be, but you do question those ideas. How would you react if you were in that situation, if someone you love was killed? We've done our research - we visited victims of torture, we spoke to someone who'd been a lawyer for General Pinochet, and my own brother is a lawyer who has prosecuted terrorists. We needed to look quite deeply into it and not make knee-jerk decisions about these issues.

It sounds like it's been quite a gruelling process.

It has been gruelling. But that's why you have to laugh. It's a robust play, with a perfect structure. The author was mentored by Harold Pinter, and you can tell - the style is Pinteresque, and the play is dedicated to Pinter. And it really feels like that, every word carries weight. Every line has an effect, every day we find out something else. It's fun, it'll keep changing. Everyone will react differently when the audiences come in.

Including you? Will your interpretations change according to audience reaction?

No. You have to make decisions - you know what you think. That doesn't mean the audience are aware of your decisions or what you think - the lines you're saying may have ambiguity. But that's the joy of the play. The audience's decisions are not made for them - you should leave arguing. There is an ending to the action - but there's not a conclusion.

So it's up to the audience - it's all ambiguous?

It is. It's a thriller in the perfect tradition - it's straightforward, entertaining, and rockets along at a pace.

It's all very different from the part I know you best for - as Sir Lancelot in Spamalot...

[Tom laughs extensively] Spamalot was a blip! I've never done anything else like that, and yet it's the only time I've ever been nominated for an Olivier award!

Tom Goodman-Hill stars in Death and the Maiden, which begins previews on October 13

 

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