TV STAR Clive Mantle plays a washed-up lawyer who is given one last chance to redeem himself in The Verdict.

The world stage premiere of Barry Reed’s The Verdict comes to Salisbury Playhouse for one week only from Monday, March 6 to Saturday 11.

The courtroom thriller was made famous by the five times Oscar-nominated Sidney Lumet film with Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling and James Mason.

Frank Galvin (Mantle) is given an open-and-shut medical malpractice case that no one thinks he can win in the play which is set in 1980s Boston, USA.

Up against the unforgiving medical establishment and the all-powerful Catholic Church, he courageously refuses an out of court settlement and instead takes the case and the entire legal system to court.

As Mantle explains: “It is the story of a washed-out and rather down-on-his luck, which is self inflicted, lawyer Frank Galvin who has drunk himself into oblivion. He was a very promising lawyer as a young man but has let it go. He is handed one last chance to redeem himself.”

“He is a wonderful rounded character, he is not a hero in the conventional sense.

He has done an awful lot of wrong,” says Mantle, who has appeared in The Vicar of Dibley, Mount Pleasant, White Van Man, Game of Thrones and as Dr Mike Barratt in both Casualty and Holby City.

He is joined on stage by Jack Shepherd who played Detective Superintendent Charles Wycliffe in the TV series Wycliffe.

Completing the cast is Richard Walsh (London’s Burning), Peter Harding, Cassie Bancroft, Tom Roberts (Emmerdale / 2point4 Children), Veronica Quilligan, Okon Jones, Michael Lunney, Nuala Walsh, Eugenia Caruso, Jog Maher, Marcus Knibbs and Hannah Timms.

“It is an immediate piece,” says Mantle. “You’ll be taken on a journey with the characters there and then.”

The Verdict is adapted by Margaret May Hobbs and directed by Michael Lunney.

For tickets call the box office on 01722 320333 or go to salisburyplayhouse.com.