Review: TERROR, Lyric Hammersmith

With searingly topical timing, this summer sees the Lyric Hammersmith presenting the UK premiere of Terror, a tense courtroom drama by German lawyer and writer Ferdinand von Schirach which has become something of a worldwide hit. The premise is simple enough: a trial is undertaken on stage and the whole audience is the jury, voting after all the evidence has been presented.

The events leading to the trial are undisputed. In May 2016 a Lufthansa flight from Berlin to Munich, carrying 164 passengers and crew, was hijacked. When it became clear that the hijacker's aim was to crash the plane into a packed 70,000-seater stadium, the German Air Force scrambled one of its rapid response units. After the fighter jet failed to divert the passenger plane from its course, the pilot defied his superiors and shot down the plane, killing all on board but saving all in the stadium.

It's the moral issues the audience is asked to grapple with that provide the conundrum. Should a pilot ever disobey orders? Is there any scenario in which constitutional law (which states that one life should never be weighed against another) can justifiably be ignored? Was the pilot right to kill 164 people to save 70,000, or should he be found guilty of the mass murder of innocents?

The cast plays each part with an understatement befitting a real trial, creating a sober atmosphere helped by Anna Fleischle's no-frills courtroom set and Sean Holmes's uncomplicated direction - no overt theatricality to be found here. The matter-of-fact Presiding Judge (Tanya Moodie) steers proceedings according to the book. Prosecuting Counsel Nelson (Emma Fielding) pursues her case against the pilot with stubborn determination, whilst Defence Counsel Biegler (Forbes Masson) cuts a tetchy figure in his pursuit to vindicate the actions of his client.

Whilst the trial was conducted around him, however, I found myself focusing mainly on the pilot Lars Koch. Ashley Zhangazha plays him with impressive integrity: listening intently to the proceedings, reacting subtly, and displaying a realistic mix of military attitude and humanity in his testimony.

Terror is a play for our times, recognising the realities of today's threats whilst posing some genuinely challenging moral questions that you'll continue to ponder after leaving the theatre. This is the closest you'll get to serving on a jury without actually being called up, and makes for a tense evening that requires focus from the audience. That focus, however, is fully rewarded when the verdict is delivered based on the audience's votes on the night.

So what was the verdict? All I'll say is that it was much closer than I'd expected. You should judge for yourself.

Terror at Lyric Hammersmith until 15 July

Photo credit: Tristram Kenton