To Kill A Mockingbird
Gielgud Theatre

APPARENTLY when asked if he would write the script for the stage adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird, Hollywood playwright Aaron Sorkin thought “it would be a death wish.” It’s easy to see why. Harper Lee’s 1960 Pulitzer prize-winning novel tackling racism and injustice is such an enormously popular story — almost sacred in fact — it’s a daunting task for anyone, even an Oscar-winning screenwriter such as Sorkin.

But Sorkin needn’t have worried, he and director Bartlett Sher have managed to create a startling adaptation that not only pays homage to the original text — as well as the equally successful 1962 film — but challenges and criticises the novel’s flaws. Atticus Finch’s white saviour is reproached, muted black characters have voices.       

First staged on Broadway during Trump’s time at the White House, followed by the very public murder of George Floyd, it still feels incredibly timely — a shameful indictment on us today.