The Incident Room

Many thanks to The Windmill Players for inviting my guest and I to attend their production of The Incident Room at Thornton Little Theatre, which ran from 7th – 10th June 2023. Olivia Hirst and David Byrne’s play is in many ways an old-fashioned crime thriller. Set in 1975, the majority of the action takes place in the Millgarth Incident Room in Leeds and follows the much-criticised investigation by West Yorkshire Police and the biggest manhunt in British history for the notorious serial killer dubbed The Yorkshire Ripper. From the obsession over minor leads to the disregarding of physical evidence, the misogyny faced by female officers and the volume of paperwork generated by good old-fashioned police work of that era, the audience gains insight into the mounting pressure felt by the hundreds of officers involved with the investigation through the eyes of a few key team members. 

Knowing the subject matter beforehand, I did not expect to be chuckling along with the rest of the audience so often but this again was further insight into what is often called the ‘gallows humour’ associated with working in this kind of professional environment. I felt the cast as a whole delivered these humorous moments very naturally in the flow of their dialogue – this was nice to observe because sometimes we see actors over emphasising these moments for comic effect in the search for audience reaction, rather than allowing the scripted dialogue delivered in a natural way to do the work, which ruins the feel of the humour coming from normal, everyday chat and banter.

I enjoyed Harry Chambers’ direction of this production; it is a long play, so using all the available stage and some auditorium space effectively negated the requirement for scene changes, and lighting was used to highlight a few downstage areas as an interview room, nightclub ladies’ toilets and the nightclub dancefloor/bar area – this was a nice way of directing the small amount of action taking place outside the incident room. An audience member was arrested at one point during a very effective isolated break in the 4th wall which drew the audience into the nightclub where Maureen Long, the first of The Ripper’s victims to survive, was on the lookout for her assailant with an undercover officer. Throughout the play, a couple of the characters regularly stepped forward into bright spotlight whilst the action behind froze in dimmed lighting, to emphasise they were discussing the case many years later, considering with hindsight what should and shouldn’t have happened at the time. This worked very well and, in my opinion, made perfectly clear what was happening. Congratulations, Harry on a job very well done!

The incident room set itself looked good and convincingly set the atmosphere of very busy and chaotic surroundings, with constantly growing piles of paperwork, files etc. Costumes, props and sound effects were appropriate for the era with excellent timing on the numerous ringing phones being answered. I appreciated the use of projection onto the back wall of pre-filmed news bulletins by three additional cast members, which added further authenticity to the action and variety for the audience.

The trio of older, set in their ways detectives Dick Holland, George Oldfield and Jim Hobson, were played by Steve Cook, Chris Moxon and Mark Bowman respectively, who I felt worked well together once the play got going. Initially the dialogue didn’t flow very smoothly between these characters and they seemed hesitant but this did improve as they appeared to relax more into the performance. These three certainly put across to the audience the levels of stress, frustration, weight of expectation and sheer volume of work encountered on a daily basis, as well as the incompetence and arrogance which hampered the investigation at times. They clearly provided the contrast required against the younger police officers played by Louise Evans and Luke Foley. These slightly smaller roles were central to some of the pivotal moments in the story; especially Luke who played Andy Laptew, the junior officer credited as being the first to identify Peter Sutcliffe after interviewing him. I felt Luke did a good job of portraying the urgency, exasperation and guilt felt by his character.  Louise and Luke never stopped acting and they were sometimes on stage for extended periods without being directly involved in the scene; they did a great job of looking authentically busy in a hectic office environment throughout.

Ruth White played the focal character Megan Winterburn, the female police officer at the heart of the case and through whose eyes we mostly see the action unfold, between her moments of reminiscence. Ruth for me was the standout performance of the evening. She portrayed Megan in a very natural way and I felt she displayed a lovely, subtle character arc as we saw the years of investigation on this case affect her individually, not only as a female police officer but as a woman living in the Yorkshire Ripper’s territory. She looked totally at home as Megan moving about the incident room and interacting with fellow officers and witnesses. This really was a performance to be proud of.

Andy Welsh was perfectly cast as Jack Ridgeway, the brash Head of Manchester CID who had linked one of his own murder investigations to the Ripper case. Andy had developed a brilliantly irritating, arrogant but funny characterisation which the audience clearly appreciated. Having seen Andy’s work before I know he is good at accents and his Mancunian offering didn’t disappoint!

Katie Ashworth played the unrelenting reporter with energy and conviction and brought some humour out of the dialogue, mostly with Ruth’s character Megan Winterburn. Tina Warren played Maureen Long, the first of Sutcliffe’s victims to survive and I felt she ably portrayed the mixed and complicated emotional and psychological reactions to her ordeal, coupled with her resilience and determination to assist the police enquiry in any way possible. Malcolm Holroyd did a good job of expressing the exasperation taxi driver Terry Hawkshaw must have felt as he was hounded by the police as their initial suspect, despite having airtight alibies.

All round this was a well put together production of quite an unusual play and despite it being a lengthy piece, the cast held the attention of the audience throughout. Well done all and I look forward to the next production from The Windmill Players.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.