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Unreliable Evidence

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Crime & Justice

Series exploring and analysing the legal issues of the day

Unreliable Evidence: Courtroom Drama

26/12/2012

Courtroom Drama

BBC Radio 4 - Unreliable Evidence, Courtroom Drama

Clive Anderson and guests look at how the legal world is reflected on stage and screen.

Clive Anderson and guests discuss how the innate theatricality of the legal world is reflected in drama and how distinctions between Rumpole and reality can become blurred.

With its sets and costumes, soliloquies, suspense and dramatic revelations - the courtroom is pure theatre.

Following the return of Rumpole to Radio 4, Clive Anderson and his guests discuss how accurately the legal world is depicted in stage and screen dramas. And they discuss the issues which arise when the distinctions between fiction and fact - between Rumpole and reality - become blurred in the public's mind.

Guests Helena Kennedy QC, appeal court judge Sir Alan Moses, German judge Ruth Herz and former barrister and co-creator of Garrow's Law, Mark Pallis, reflect on 50 years of fictional courtroom dramas - from To Kill a Mockingbird to Silk, and ask if lawyers can learn things from the actors who portray them.

Does the way courtroom dramas introduce dramatic last minute evidence, show defendants crumbling under cross-examination and defence barristers reducing juries to tears, even remotely reflect the real world? Are judges really as out of touch, and lawyers as pompous and greedy as their screen counterparts? And does it really matter if screenwriters fail to stick to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

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Producer: Brian King
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