The Man They Couldn’t Hang

Three failed attempts. One surviving man. A macabre reunion on the music hall stage.

A down-at-heel northern music hall needs a miracle to pull in the crowds. The proprietor’s desperate, red-hot idea? A macabre double act featuring the most bizarre pairing in English true crime history.

In 1885, John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee became the only man ever reprieved after the gallows trap failed to open three times. Now released after 22 years in prison, Lee is pitched into an uneasy stage partnership with the very man who tried to execute him: the notoriously inept former public hangman, James Berry.

As the pair prepare to recreate the fateful hanging for paying audiences, tensions rise. Did Lee truly commit the murder, or did divine intervention prevent a miscarriage of justice? And as Lee begins to confide in his leading lady during rehearsals, will the real truth finally emerge?

Written by former prison writer-in-residence Michael Crowley, The Man They Couldn’t Hang is an imaginative two-act play that explores the dark theatre of the justice system. Perfect for full-scale production, it also serves as a brilliant resource for drama groups, tutors, and criminal justice settings.

Reprises the most puzzling event in UK criminal history.

Review

‘This work would undoubtedly provide a wealth of meaty material for any drama workshop worth its name, whether inside or outside of the prison wall. I hope to have the opportunity to see it performed some time, if only to have a good laugh at a good (or rather bad) hanging’– Prison Service Journal

Author


Michael Crowley is a writer and youth justice worker who has written for stage, radio and film. His first play ‘Beyond Omarska’ was produced by Box of Tricks Theatre and shortlisted for the BBC’s Alfred Bradley Bursary Award and The Kings Cross Award. ‘A Warning against Idle Gossip‘ went into production in Liverpool in 2011. He was writer in residence at HM Prison and Young Offender Institution Lancaster Farms between 2007 and 2010. The Man They Couldn’t Hang is his second full length play. He lives in West Yorkshire.