REVIEW: THE TRIALS OF GALILEO by Nic Young at The Old Red Lion 28 Nov – 02 Dec 2023

“a stripped back, beautiful period piece that humanises the thwarted astronomer” ★★★★

Walking into the Old Red Lion Theatre upstairs, is a bit like walking into a painting by Caravaggio, the renaissance artist known for his dramatic, chiaroscuro lighting. The background is completely black. One spotlight picks out a gleaming telescope on a stand, its base surrounded by drawings of planets. Another rests on a silver-haired, velvet-robed man in deep contemplation at his desk. Throughout the next seventy minutes with no interval, the blackness comes, goes and grows.

Galileo Galilei was the first to prove with science in 1610 that the earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around. For such an outrageous provocation, he would be tried (twenty-four years later) for heresy because this went against the teachings of the church. In the past, a mystic friar had been burnt at the stake for the same abominable idea while Copernicus who used numbers to make his point was discredited.

But Galileo, who built his own telescope and was able to “look at all the corners of the universe,” had proof. While he was spared the rack and death, he was silenced, imprisoned and forbidden from publishing such views again. For a man of science who conceded to having his life’s work ‘cancelled’, such an outcome was deeply painful, perhaps worse than death. “I’m not much of a martyr” he admits ruefully.

The veteran actor, Tim Hardy takes on the role in this one man show with a sage weariness and benign wisdom. He holds the audience completely with all the tools of physical storytelling: his body, voice and emotion. The audience experience the conflict riven deep into his soul and, as we move through the trial, we witness the growing self-realisation he's at the centre of a right papal stitch-up. With self-loathing, simmering anger and remorse, Galileo cannot unknow what he knows.

Stepping into a formidable space carved out by Berthold Brecht in 1938 (with his play Life of Galileo), Nic Young, who wrote and directed this play, giving us a powerful human interpretation of the thwarted astronomer and physicist. Who knew that Galileo was an elderly man of 70 when he was tried, one who suffered with “arthritis and piles” and who travelled 200 miles from Florence to Rome, to be tried (with no legal representation) by the Grand Inquisitor who we know to be “a two-faced bastard”?

The Trials of Galileo allows audiences to time travel back to Renaissance Italy, navigate the scientific and religious beliefs while experiencing the trauma of one scientist’s journey. It’s not surprising this play was a hit at Edinburgh and has toured extensively throughout the UK and Europe. Let’s hope more London audiences will have the chance to experience this beautiful, stripped back period piece.

Produced by Hint of Lime https://hint-of-lime.com/our-productions/

Reviewed by Nilgin Yusuf

www.NilginYusuf.com