![](https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/1250-87bdde25c67ffb9b97f5d4d1aa910ecf.webp)
Show: The Only White
Society: London (professional shows)
Venue: Chelsea Theatre. 7 World’s End Place, Chelsea, London, SW10 0DR
Credits: By Gail Louw. Directed by Anthony Shrubsall. Presented by Aptly Art & Theatrically Becca.
Type: Sardines
Author: Susan Elkin
Performance Date: 06/04/2023
The Only White
Susan Elkin | 07 Apr 2023 08:54am
In 1965, a white man, John Harris was hanged in Pretoria for terrorism-related murder. He was the only white person to be executed in Apartheid South Africa although plenty of others were assassinated. Harris’s widow, who had a new baby, was assisted by Peter Hain’s parents, themselves committed to peaceful anti-apartheid activism. It’s these events and relationships which form the crux of Gail Louw’s five-hander play whose UK debut this production is.
The narrative is gripping because Harris, who was a respected teacher, definitely did plant a bomb at Johannesburg station despite claims to be opposed to violence. Because he (he claimed) he didn’t want anyone to be hurt, he phoned in three warnings but – his supporters alleged – the authorities chose to ignore them because it suited them to have a scapegoat play into their hands. In the event, the bomb detonated. One woman died and her granddaughter sustained life-changing injuries. The jury is still out as to the truth of all this – except that there wasn’t one. Harris’s hearing was before a single judge who was unsympathetic and sentenced him to death.
There’s some talented acting in this show especially by Emma Wilkinson Wright as Ad Hain, Peter’s mother. She is totally believable in her anxious decency. Edmund Sage-Green is impressive too. As John Harris he spents almost the entire show encased in a cell (set by Malena Arucci) behind the main action. He does silent despair, fear, anguish – and eventually – courage well. Some of the letters between him and his wife Elizabeth (Avena Mansergh-Wallace) have survived and form part of the text for the play.
It’s a powerful concept for a play but there are problems. It’s wordy and often wooden because there’s far too much didactic explanation and exposition which feels very laboured at times. Peter (Gil Sidaway), then a boy of fourteen, seems mostly to be there to ask questions or to be the recipient of the information the playwright wants to give the audience.
The second half is pacier and the execution itself is chillingly and poignantly well done as Robert Blackwood as Wal Hain describes to Peter exactly what happens at a hanging while Sage-Green presents terror mixed with dignity behind them.
Two of the characters in this play are still alive – David, the baby in the carrycot, Harris’s son, and, obviously, Peter Hain. They spoke to Mishal Hussein on Radio 4’s today programme on Thursday, 6 April and that discussion is worth listening to for further insights.