Tom Conti, right, is a great believer in the importance of justice being properly served, he tells CHARLES HUTCHINSON. So Twelve Angry Men is the play for him.

TOM Conti is back on jury service only six months after concluding his duty as Juror number eight in Twelve Angry Men in a record-breaking run at the Garrick Theatre in the West End.

“It’s good fun to do this play and I thought it would be fun doing it around the country,” says the 73-year-old Scotsman, who will appear in the role made famous by Henry Fonda at Leeds Grand Theatre from April 7 to 11 and the Grand Opera House, York, from April 13 to 18.

“People outside of London really like to come to the theatre. In London you kind of have to drag them kicking and screaming into town because for lots of people, it’s such a difficult event coming into town. Outside of London they gladly go to the theatre and they like to.”

Conti smiles at the number of times people mention Henry Fonda. “That’s what we hear all the time, where they say, ‘I saw the movie with Henry Fonda’, but they can’t remember the story,” he says. “I saw it in the 1950s and I couldn’t remember the argument.”

For those not familiar with Reginald Rose’s play, Conti provides a guide to its premise. “It’s very simple, but I don’t want to give anything away. A boy has been on trial for murder, a 16-year-old delinquent accused of murdering his father, and this bunch, a motley lot really, the jurors, most of them don’t really want to spend any time doing this, and they’re happy to vote ‘guilty’ and send the boy to his death,” he says.

“In those days, electrocution was the punishment, the end of life, if you’d killed somebody, and it still is in many parts of America, unfortunately. So they know they’re going to send him to certain death, but they’re not prepared to actually take time to discuss the possibilities of the case, except for one man who is worried about it and he votes ‘not guilty’ against all the ‘guilty’ votes so it’s 11-1. And so he starts to try to persuade them to think a bit more deeply – and that’s the play.”

Twelve Angry Men has stood the test of time, says Conti, because the subject matter “really does distress us”. “It’s the thought that someone might be in jail for something they have not done,” he says. “I am involved with Inside Justice organisation and I started my involvement when I began doing this play.

York Press:

Tom Conti

“I had spoken to a woman who worked for a private forensics company – which is no longer state-funded – in connection with a novel I was writing (and have now finished). I needed forensic information, so I invited her to the play and we met for dinner afterwards. That’s how I then came to be involved with Inside Justice.”

Two cases in particular have come to the attention of Inside Justice. “Kevin Nunn has been in jail for almost ten years on very iffy evidence for killing his girlfriend, and the second one is [the ‘Angel of Death’ case of] Colin Norris, the Scottish nurse, where two jurors have come forward to say they are now not happy with the verdict that he murdered four elderly patients at two Leeds hospitals,” says Conti, who has an enthusiasm for science and the significant part forensics can play in attaining correct verdicts.

“Everyone is concerned about miscarriages of justice,” he continues. “Yet people don’t have voices, certainly not in this country, where it’s very difficult for the ordinary person to make his or her voice heard, but I think we have a duty to let their voice be heard because, if there’s a miscarriage of justice, it reflects on us all.”

Analysing his role as Juror number eight, the voice of conscience in Twelve Angry Men, Conti says: “It’s like any other role; all roles have their own weight. This man is the only one out of the 12 jurors who has an intellect and an education – he’s an architect – and that makes a difference as he knows how to think; the others just react.

“His idea of justice is that you can’t just put your hands up after two minutes and say ‘guilty’. He’s concerned about the incompetence of the defence team, feeling that the questions he would have asked were not asked.”

Conti has never been summoned to jury service. “But a friend of mine that has done it told me they found the jurors all took the case very seriously and behaved pretty responsibly, though that’s not always the case. In fact, it’s been written by a juror – without mentioning the case of course – how appalled they were about the poverty of the deliberations by the other jurors. And you’re putting a life into your hands and you’ve got to be very careful. To send a man to jail for a year, a year in prison is a long, long time.”

The tour will see two surprising firsts for Conti. “I’ve never played York; I’ve never played Leeds,” he reveals. “So that will be interesting.”

• Twelve Angry Men runs at Leeds Grand Theatre (0844 8482700) from April 7 to 11 and Grand Opera House, York (0844 8713024) from April 13 to 18.