When drama and politics collide

The Tricycle Theatre's knack of staging cutting-edge plays is trained upon the Hutton inquiry

At the beginning of the Hutton inquiry, Geoffrey Robertson QC made a plea for the proceedings to be televised. "My Lord, your inquiry will appear on television anyway," he said. "It appears by way of what is called a dramatic re-enactment. It usually begins as a play at a theatre in north London, then transfers to the BBC...."

Robertson had a specific theatre in mind. The Tricycle Theatre on London's Kilburn High Road has been winning plaudits for years with its re-enactments of the major political or judicial inquiries of recent history, from the Nuremberg trials to the inquiry into Stephen Lawrence's killing. Now, as predicted, they turn to Lord Hutton's investigation into "the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly".

Nicolas Kent, the artistic director of the Tricycle, regards it as "a service. I wouldn't do the plays if [the original events] were televised. Most people get their news from the broadcast media, so it seems extraordinary to me that public inquiries aren't televised". Kent admits it is an exciting challenge: "Actors adore doing them because they are so different. It's very unusual for actors to connect so directly with something that's happening in the public gaze."

Kent and the journalist Richard Norton-Taylor sat through the whole inquiry, but decided to focus only on its first phase. The cast neither attempt to mimic the players nor affect the pompous accents the television voiceovers produced in their coverage. "What one does is try and get into the mind of what each witness is thinking, so that the actors can get under the skin of the witness. And then by doing that they can inherit the body language of the witness. Alastair Campbell, for example, has very symmetrical gestures. He almost always uses both hands. But it's about analysing what was said and why it was said."

This doesn't mean there is no drama. "These inquiries always do have dramatic effects. With the Scott arms to Iraq inquiry, it was Mrs Thatcher who gave evidence at the end. With the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, it was the standing for a minutes silence." With the Hutton inquiry, says Kent, "There's light shed on the dossier in quite an extraordinary way - Andrew Gilligan's forensic dissection of it was very interesting. And the transcriptions of the phone conversations with Dr Kelly were absolutely fascinating." Mrs Kelly's moving evidence closes the show.

This production is called Justifying War. Yet the inquiry officially regarded only the suicide of one individual. Justifying his own decision to re-enact the proceedings, Kent says: "We needed to have an inquiry into the reasons for going to war, and this is the best we're going to get. It's amazing that both the QC for the inquiry and Lord Hutton did open it up to the extent that they did. Whether their report will open it up in a similar way, I don't know."

'Justifying War - Scenes from the Hutton Inquiry', Tricycle Theatre, London NW6. There will be an after-show discussion three evenings a week, (020-7328 1000; www.tricycle.co.uk) 30 October-29 November