True Life Crime Thriller at the Talisman

L-R: Ben Ionoff as Richard Loeb, Julien Rosa as Nathan Leopold. Photography Robert Warner & Peter Weston.

True Crime Thriller ‘Never the Sinner’ by John Logan, a 1924 murder case at the Talisman Theatre, Kenilworth from 4 - 9 November 2024. Directed by Sam Harris.

Review by Ann Evans.

Chicago 1924 the biggest court case to hit America involved two wealthy young men, Nathan Leopold and Richard Leob on trial for the cold-blooded murder of 14-year-old Bobbie Frank.

The innocent boy was tragically in the wrong place at the wrong time and picked out by Nathan Leopold (Julien Rosa) and Richard Leob (Ben Ionoff) with the sole purpose of brutally murdering him. Their reason? An experiment to see if they could. They believed themselves to be supermen and above the law.

Chicago as the time still had the death penalty, but these two murderers believed they could escape that and literally get away with murder through their wangling and top-notch defence lawyer.

Journalists Matt Baxter, Katie-Anne Ray and Daniel Peckett. Photography Robert Warner & Peter Weston.

The setting for this play was simple and effective, (Set Designer James Harris), the backdrops were of larger-than-life newspaper headlines about the trial. The stage had a few chairs and a raised platform where the press and public could make their feelings known. This setting provided everything needed to create a courtroom – inside and out; interview rooms; a private space where Leob and Leopold danced, shared intimate moments - and made plans to commit a murder. Last but not least, a block of chairs became the car into which they lured poor Bobbie Frank, so that Leob could kill him in a frenzy of violence. Although this scene was only mimed, it was shockingly effective. 

While the case itself is disturbing, it’s excellent acting by every member of the cast. The three reporters Matt Baxter, Katie-Anne Ray and Daniel Peckett also doubled up as witnesses. Robert Crowe (Dan Gough) makes for a solid, unmoveable state attorney, determined to see the two killers pay the ultimate price for their crime – to be given the death penalty.

Ben Ionoff as Richard Loeb and Julien Rosa as Nathan Leopold. Photography Robert Warner & Peter Weston.

Cunningly, Leob and Leopold changed their plea to guilty at the last moment, so doing away with a trial by jury. Now an impassioned speech by their defence lawyer, Clarence Darrow (Peter Nouwens) argued against hanging them, wanting a life prison sentence rather than the hangman’s noose. Cleverly, because the killers were aged under 21, he constantly referred to them as ‘boys’ with problems that caused them to kill, in order to sway the judge towards a more lenient sentence.

As for the two main characters, great acting by them – Julien Rosa took the role of Nathan Leopold, a young man who was totally under the control of Richard Leob (Ben Ionoff). While Leob is the  remorseless, arrogant individual with a knack of manipulating others to achieve his aims. He has Leopold wrapped around his little finger.

It’s a fascinating play that holds the attention throughout although the beginning, for my companion and I at least, was a little confusing. but once you realised the smartly dressed confident young men were the killers not the lawyers, you soon got into the stride.

Katie-Anne Ray and Ben Ionoff. Photography Robert Warner & Peter Weston.

At the time this trial caused a lot of debate into questions of morality, justice and the human condition. Personally, I didn’t feel that these points were particularly brought into question. To me it was an open and shut case of a brutal pre-meditated murder, with the perpetrators showing no remorse for the heartbreak they’d caused to poor Bobbie Frank’s family, whose mother, it seemed went insane with grief.

Their fate hung in the balance as to which lawyer put forward the strongest argument. Take a trip back to Chicago a hundred years ago and make up your own mind.

Tickets available via the website www.talismantheatre.co.uk or by contacting the Box Office direct on 01926 856548.