The Daily Telegraph from London, Greater London, England • 6

6 THURSDAY FEBRUARY 19 1998 THE DAILY TELEGRAPH NEWS Binoche bares her soul in a play of passion families plan private prosecutions against police Straw rules out new Hillsborough inquiry By Rachel Sylvester Political Correspondent Theatre Islington Juliette Binoche: a performance wrenched raw from the guts Picture: ALASTAIR MUIR two daughters died in the disaster said relatives were disgusted by Mr Straw 's betrayal" and called on the Home Secretary to resign He said: only remedy open to us now is private prosecutions We will be accused of vengeful vindictiveness but other people do not have to live with this day in day out knowing that a gross miscarriage of justice has Relatives also threatened to stand against Labour MPs in the Merseyside area including George Howarth the Home Office minister as a way of registering their anger Wilf Whelan whose son Ian died in the disaster at the age of 19 said he had received the news with police told lies and Jack Straw is ready to put up with that It makes the whole system he said lost my son and I have been waiting nine years for justice and I have still not seen Mr statement drew' an angry response from some Labour MPs Eddie O'Hara MP for Knowsley said: has to live on Merseyside to understand the palpable sense of grief and anger that exists and what we still regard as an inquests were for investigating major incidents and promised to introduce a single fully comprehensive inquiry to deal with future tragedies Mr Straw who met the families of the victims before making his Commons statement acknowledged that they were disappointed and fully understand that those who lost loved ones should feel betrayed by those responsible for policing the Hillsborough football ground and the state of the ground on that he said However he stressed: any major disaster it is almost inevitable that over the course of time some new information may become available But that does not necessarily mean that the outcome of any previous inquiries would have been Lord Justice Stuart-Smith dismissed suggestions that the police had suppressed crucial video ev idence and rejected accusations that they had tried to pressure witnesses into changing evidence The families of the victims who had their hopes raised last June when Mr Straw appointed Lord Justice Stuart-Smith to review the evidence were furious about his findings Trevor Hicks chairman of the family support group whose RELATIVES of the 96 people killed in the Hillsborough disaster said yesterday that they would go ahead with their own private prosecutions after the Home Secretary refused a new public inquiry The families accused Jack Straw of a and said they had no alternative but to take action themselves against police officers involved Mr Straw told the Commons that a review of new evidence conducted by Lord Justice Stuart-Smith had not added to the material available to the previous public inquiry by Lord Justice Taylor into the tragedy at Sheffield in 1989 He said there was therefore no reason to suppose that the additional information would have changed the verdict of the original investigation However Mr Straw admitted that system" had failed the victims' families and pledged to tighten procedures for dealing with such disasters in future He told MPs that the Government intended to introduce a tough new disciplinary system for police officers involved in disasters because Hillsborough had highlighted serious shortcomings" in the existing rules He also accepted that coroners' Naked Almeida FIRST I must satisfy the curiosity of voyeurs alluring prospect though it is Juliette Binoche does not appear naked in Naked What the French Oscar-winner offers instead in drama is something much more harrowing an emotional striptease of guilt hysteria and despair that is sometimes almost too painful to watch The Almeida is famous for luring the most famous names to its far from glamorous premises at a miserly wage of £225 a week but film stars always make good stage actors Miss Binoche best known for The English Patient opposite Ralph Fiennes has little theatrical experience Sometimes it shows Occasionally her words are lost in a Gallic gabble and there are moments when the stridency seems to be the result of lack of technique rather than extreme emotion There is however no escaping the electrifying intensity of this performance which seems to have been wrenched raw and wounded from the guts exactly what difficult play demands We think of Pirandello as a pioneer of theatrical modernism who played intellectual games with that old theatrical double act truth and illusion But he insisted that he the intellect into and it is the passion the anguish that Jonathan fine production so powerfully captures It is hard to believe the play was written in 1922 for it seems to have been torn from recent newspaper headlines In a story with echoes of the Louise Woodward ease Binoche plays a nanny Ersilia Drei whose charge has died while in her care She has fled front Smyrna in the Levant to Rome attempted suicide and is now plastered ail over the newspapers A successful novelist offers her sanctuary partly because he thinks she will make good copy partly because he clearly fancies her Ersilia however in her cheap dress and grubby jacket has had more than enough of sex The play is like an inge- THERE'S NO BETTER First Night by Charles Spencer Theatre Critic nious detective story in which emotion is every bit as important as evidence As the action develops we are presented with constantly shifting versions of what happened in the Roman house in Smyrna Did our heroine attempt suicide because of the death because she was jilted by her navy lover or for some other secret shameful reason? As the novelist who like Pirandello himself is trying to turn life into art complains: had a story in mind And every time that door flies open it gets Binoche keeps turning the mood on a sixpence At times pathetically vulnerable at others hard coarse and cruel Then in the final spine-tingling minutes when all illusions all dignity have been remorselessly stripped away she achieves a miraculous radiance This is not a show for the faint hearted Though Nicholas new translation has flashes of elegant it the mood is gruellingly bleak This makes Oliver Ford contribution as the novelist Ludovico Nota all the more valuable Grumbling and growling like a bear with a sore head he is often blissfully funny getting terrific value out of even unpromising lines and ensuring that the misery does not become ridiculously excessive There is strong support too from Kevin McNally as (he brooding angry consul whose role in the tragedy is more complex than it first appears and from Anita Reeves as the landlady Ben Daniels however overdoes the head clasping angst as the naval lieutenant No one could pretend that Naked is an easy night out but I suspect this intense atmospheric production will trouble the memory was potential for planning permission they would have to pay an extra £28000 on the property's increased value They had been told to apply for permission to see whether it would be granted but had asked councillors to turn down their application as they had no wish to build a house there lest Valley borough council gave approval after being told by officers there were no planning grounds for refusal Mrs Prosser said: "We will now have to sell our house in order to pay this £28000 It is absolutely Planning win tax loss By Michael Fleet A COl who have received a £28000 inheritance tax demand because a house the were left had a potential building plot were disappointed yesterday when councillors granted them planning permission for a new house against their ashes Jean Prosser had objected to a planning application by her husband Richard for a house in the grounds of her mother's house in a village near Andover flants The couple had paid £50000 in inheritance tax but were told that because there VALUE CASHBACK Up to paint spend spend Carbon Monoxide Spot Detector When you buy a 2-pack Smoke Alarm for £699 worth of Sainsbury's Vouchers When you buy a Black Decker GRC730 Cordless Rotary Mower for £194-99 £15 cashback on any Dulux when you spend £50 eg £40 get £10 cashback £25 and get £5 cashback when you purchase these 3 products together When you buy a Circular Table and Throw Over Cloth for £4-99 each and Table Cloth for £9-99 in one transaction Mixed Drill Bit Set When you buy a Black Decker KD500K Corded Drill for £79-99 worth of Vouchers' When you buy a Black Decker GTC390 Cordless Hedge Trimmer for £8499 Answering Machine1 When you buy a Binatone Eurotel 1000 Cordless Telephone DECT3 for £1 39-99 worth of Sainsbury's When you buy a Black Decker GLC120 Cordless Strimmer with Trim Edge' and Reflex BRING AN EXPAT Y0UKN0WA LITTLE CLOSER TO HOME FREE If you know someone living or working abroad you know how much you are missing them now imagine how much they are missing home! 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