Tactical Questioning review, Tricycle Theatre

Baha Mousa with his son

The latest in The Tricycle's canon of real-life court room reenactments is the inquiry into the death of Baha Mousa, the Iraqi hotel worker wantonly tortured and killed in British Army custody.  Journalist Richard Norton Taylor, a past master of the art, has expertly handpicked evidence from the inquiry into Mousa's killing to present - in less than two hours - the nub of an investigation that lasted several months.

This is a play for details junkies, though not as complex as Norto's previous works based on the Stephen Lawrence and the Iraq inquiries.  While the individual characters who make up the patchwork of truths and half truths is just as intriguing, the subject matter does not have the same breadth or as compelling a series of accompanying actions.

Conclusion: The acting is superb, the questioning and the staging authentic, and Nick Kent's direction clear. For the politically enraged and engaged, Tactical Questioning is an absorbing play that tests the bounds of credibility - all the more so because every word said was said.

References

Richard Norton Taylor tells the Baha Mousa story
Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph

The Tricycle Theatre