West End Trial for Lawrence Inquiry
Date: 22 January 1999
The controversial new play dramatising the inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence murder will transfer to the West End's Victoria Palace theatre in March. Opened this month to critical acclaim, The Colour of Justice will finish its sell-out run at the fringe Tricycle Theatre in north London on 6 February. It will then move for two weeks to the Theatre Royal, Stratford East from 15 February before playing at the Victoria Palace from 1 to 13 March.
Eighteen-year-old Stephen was murdered near a London bus stop in April 1993 by a group of white youths who shouted 'nigger' before attacking him. Five youths were charged with the murder but no conviction was ever made.
The Colour of Justice is a dramatised reconstruction of the major events in the six-month inquiry, which also revealed the police force's racial prejudice and substantial bungling of the case. As no television cameras were allowed in the courtroom, the dramatisation provides a rare opportunity to view the legal proceedings and assess the evidence behind the racially motivated murder.
The Colour of Justice has been edited by Richard Norton-Taylor and directed by Nicolas Kent with Surian Fletcher-Jones. This is the team's fourth collaboration of this kind. Their previous reconstructions are Half the Picture (The Scott Arms to Iraq Inquiry), Nuremberg and Srebrenica, all presented first at the Tricycle Theatre.
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