Till Kill A Mockingbird: Congress Theatre.

Congress Theatre. Eastbourne

3rd December 2025. 

 Since moving to Eastbourne, I have enjoyed a number of visits to the Congress Theatre, to see Manfred Mann, Squeeze, Diversity, Jools Holland and even James Martin. I know, a long story. 

Only recently have we ventured to see theatre there and the Harper Lee classic was as good as any starting point. Not least because it was a West End Production by Jonathan Church Theatre productions, opening at the Leeds Playhouse in September and arriving in Eastbourne in early December.

Set in 1934 Alabama, To Kill a Mockingbird was inspired by novelist Harper Lee’s own childhood and has sold more than 45 million copies worldwide. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and was long at the top of the banned book lists.

Successful lawyer, Atticus Finch, encourages kindness and empathy in his children, but is pushed to the limits of these qualities himself when he resolves to uncover the truth in a town that seems determined to hide it.

The plays classic status was not lost the audience the night we attended, a cross - generational mix of older seasoned theatregoers like ourselves and many a GCSE and A Level student. We were not disappointed as the opening curtain rose, we were transported back to the Southern States.

Miriam Buether's quintessential design,  sets the mood and grounds you firmly in 1930s Maycomb, Alabama. It was fascinating to see the cast manipulate the stage furniture, from Finch’s front porch or in the courtroom. The moving of the scenery and props was almost balletic and really helped to set the rhythm of life of the period and drew us in further.

The narrative is carried by the children Scout, Jem, and Dill, who give sense of childhood and family, silly antics, moments of humour and as the story unfolds dramatic tension. Richard Coyle as Atticus Finch reprising the role from the 2022 production, Coyle gives Finch calm humanity, warm and believable. 

Thoughtful and caring with his children, Coyle is explosive in the courtroom, yet at other times he is weary of life. Will he be able to see this through? Not losing sight of the truth as he deals with the issues and emotions of empathy, justice and prejudice.

If Lee's book has aged since the 1960's, it is perhaps in the portrayal of Atticus Finch, as what we would acknowledge as a 'white saviour' narrative. A hero willing to put himself and his family at risk to in order to fight racial injustice, while the black characters at the heart of the play's narrative are mute. 

The programme notes advise us that Sorkin's update, attempts to offer redress through the  perspective of Finch's maid Calpurnia, who criticises him for expecting her to be grateful for his actions, a most powerful moment. 

Equally powerful, was Aaron Shosanya's Tom Robinson, who reluctantly puts his trust in Finch, believing he knows already what the outcome will be. Finch does his best to coach Tom in courtroom strategies and how to stay calm when under full frontal attack from the prosecution. 

On the witness stand, Shosanya is a modicum of innocence, decency and truth, repeating over again the key moments of what actually happened on the fateful day and you half believe, you want to believe he will be acquitted. But, prosecutor Horace Gilmer hadn't finished and asked again and again why Tom had visited that day?Why? Because he felt sorry for the girl!!  Not an admission of guilt, but a veritable sword of Damocles and his fate was sealed. Too honest for his own good.  

If I have one quibble, I did feel the Bob Ewell (Oscar Pearce) and his daughter Mayella Evie (Hargreaves), were a little one paced and that was full on, and didn't really build their characters as the tension mounted in the play. Particularly as Finch makes fun of Ewell at one point and shows him to be who and what he is, the real perpetrator of the crime on his daughter. 

On the witness stand, Evie Hargreaves' Mayella was under a lot of pressure, not least from two very experienced legal practitioners. But it was the face pulling, the tortured body language and the voice, from the start and no nuance in a very dramatic scene.

All credit to Dylan Malyn in his first stage production, as Dill, he got every laugh going with his comic timing and then to break our hearts in the very next scene. One to watch for the future.  Finally, to the ensemble cast who played a town full of people, that made this production so believable and pertinent to contemporary politics. I think we know, who and where we are talking about. And that made our standing ovation, all the more heartfelt and relevant. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLEEe-eBNCk