The Families of Lockerbie

The cast of the play and director Giles Croft

If there’s an emotion that defines what it is to be human then surely it is compassion - the ability to empathise and sympathise with others without giving into the more guttural instinct for revenge. For this reason compassion is an essential component of democracy because it teaches us to put others needs before that of our own. However there are two major problems with this most noble of virtues. Firstly, any selfless act requires a logical evaluation of a situation to ensure any sacrifice is worth it. This leads to the second problem. How can you make a logical assessment of a situation when the facts are constantly being manipulated and distorted by others?  Herein lies the problem at the heart of Michael Eaton’s fact-based drama with well-founded imaginative speculation when dealing with the present.

Eaton is no stranger to controversy, having previously written about Harold Shipman, the conflict in Northern Ireland and in Fellow Traveller, a member of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten. He is currently working on a play about the notorious 19th century portico thief and murderer Charlie Peace. It is no surprise then that this former Cambridge scholar of social anthropology should feel the need to address the release of Abdelbasat Ali Al-Megrahi, the supposed Lockerbie bomber who was released from prison on August 20th 2009 on compassionate grounds.

The play addresses the various reactions of Al-Megrahi’s release from two sets of families who lost relatives when Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York exploded over Lockerbie in southern Scotland, killing all 259 onboard and eleven people on the ground. This is dealt with sensitively by director Giles Croft courtesy of some impressive visual graphics representing a plane suddenly disappearing off the radar of air traffic control. The rest of the action is played out by four characters via media interviews, that takes us on a chronological journey through events leading up to Al-Megrahi’s controversial release.   

The British couple - played by Joan Moon and Robert Benfield – have lost their son and plead for forgiveness to bring closure to their lives whilst American Jennifer Woodward wants revenge for the death of her husband. There is a clear divide along transatlantic lines, opening Eaton up to accusations of caricaturing national values that privilege the British. He has cleverly addressed this with Woodward’s character as she is an American soldier’s widow, so you’d expect her to see justice served through punitive means. However the British couple are less complex, retaining their fortitude and dignity throughout. I would have expected them to crack under the pressure of the endless court cases, each of which seemed to open up more questions than answers as to the reasons for their son’s murder, thereby enabling them to go on separate journeys and avoid inevitable allegations of cultural bias.

Joan Moon and Robert Benfield play the part of the British couple

But this is easier said than done. Eaton is meticulous with detail, giving a complex context to events that bombards the audience with so much information that it is occasionally like watching a newsreel. Arguably therefore, the reactions of the family need to be simplified to enable the audience to navigate through the play, less they get lost in the contradictory facts of this massive international conspiracy. For example, an Iranian Airbus had been shot down in August 1988 in the Persian Gulf by an American warship. It was full of pilgrims on their way to Mecca for a religious holiday. Lockerbie happened a few days before Christmas. A bizarre coincidence or symmetrical retribution? And this is before we’ve even thrown oil, sanctions and war into the equation.

By presenting so many facts regarding the case, Eaton shows us that truth is an illusion, written by those with the power to distort events to suit their particular narrative. We can see exactly the same thing happening now with the oil spill in the Gulf Coast. Obama is now referring to the problem as that of ‘British Petroleum’ reducing an environmental catastrophe to a national slight. Yet in 1998 BP merged with the American energy company Amoco – who were responsible for drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Lockerbie runs along similar lines of disinformation, be it government officials secretly negotiating deals behind closed doors or taxi drivers with fanciful conspiracy theories.

Any play which deals with real life deaths is bound to be accused of profiteering out of others misery. This is clearly not the case here as Eaton has tirelessly researched his facts and included in the programme a list of all those who died, less we forget. There is also a very touching scene towards the end of the play when the cast come to the front of the stage and hold up photographs of their dead and talk in unison about how it has affected them. This forced the audience to recognise the deaths, personalising the tragedy, reminding us that these are the people who really lost out in the ensuing PR battle fort over by the media, corporations, and governments over the proceeding decades. 

It would appear that all though not a particularly nice person, Abdelbasat Ali Al-Megrahi was innocent and therefore worthy of our compassion. Yet his home greeting in Tripoli, and the fact that he is still alive, will not bode well for those who find themselves in similar circumstances in the future. For this reason, it was necessary to show cultural shifts in attitudes to the event as if America had forced the case to be heard on home soil, Megrahi would have inevitably gone 'to the chair' and a full stop would have replaced what is clearly a comma. This is worth bearing in mind with recent changes in the law that allow suspected terrorists to be extradited without question. Gary McKinnon springs to mind...

I don’t know what the truth is but I do know that compassion and the ability to consider facts from someone else’s perspective is the biggest hope we have as a species. It is this that Eaton has tried to address by imaginatively speculating on the reactions of two fictional families and ensuring the debate remains firmly in the public's conscience. Thank goodness there are still writers out there who have the guts to do so because there are many lessons to be learnt from this awful tragedy.

The Families of Lockerbie runs until Saturday 19th June at the Nottingham Playhouse, Wellington Circus, NG1 5AL. Tel 0115 941 9419 

Christoph Büchel recently blew up a plane in a controlled environment and then reconstructed it for his exhibition 'Last Man Out Turn Off Lights' which is worth checking out if this subject interests you.

Nottingham Playhouse's website
James Walker's website

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