Ahead of the To Kill a Mockingbird tour’s arrival at Theatre Royal Bath, Richard Coyle talks to Melissa Blease about rediscovering Atticus Finch, confronting complexity, and why the story’s lessons still resonate today. Photography by Johan Persson; above: Richard Coyle as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mocking Bird.
Race, class and gender; prejudice, morality and inequality; the conflict between good and evil… and what it means to be human: Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Southern gothic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, first published in 1960 and largely focusing on racial injustice in 1934 Alabama, is a perennial classic of modern American literature.
Despite being one of the most frequently banned books in the USA, it has remained continuously in print since publication, with between 750,000 and 1 million copies sold each year adding to the total tally of over 45 million sales worldwide to date.
American film director, playwright and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s highly-acclaimed stage adaptation of the book, which premiered on Broadway in 2018 before transferring to London’s West End in 2022, comes to Theatre Royal Bath this month, with English actor Richard Coyle (Coupling; Heads of State; Chilling Adventures of Sabrina; Fantastic Beasts; Player Kings) reprising his role as the story’s iconic protagonist Atticus Finch for audiences across the UK and Ireland in the production’s first tour. But…
“Don’t expect to meet the Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird as you think you know him,” says Richard. “Aaron Sorkin introduces us to a glimpse of the Atticus of Harper Lee’s first book Go Set a Watchman, which wasn’t published until 2016 when it caused a huge outcry of its own because people were upset by the more complex Atticus that it portrayed.
“My Atticus is a wounded man, still suffering the loss of his wife seven years previously. He’s the father of two children, Jem and Scout, and his life as a single, widowed father dictates the decisions he makes both personally and professionally. It’s a much more complicated portrayal of a white moderate man living in America’s deep south, which we perhaps don’t have a parallel for in the UK.”
We do, however, have all manner of parallels with all manner of the issues raised in both books and the stage adaptation – not least of all, the complex dynamics of the father-daughter relationship.
“To Kill a Mockingbird explores Scout’s child-eye perspective of her father, the hero; she adores him,” Richard explains. “In Go Set a Watchman, we meet Scout in her late 20s. Having been living and studying in New York, she returns to the South to visit her ageing father with whom she is now at political loggerheads. She’s become an urbanite progressive, and things are very different in New York than they would have been in a small town in mid-1930s Alabama.
“Ideological disagreements around the ‘race situation’ arise and, in combining the character from both books, Atticus is revealed as less of a straightforward ‘white saviour’, with much more subtle, nuanced depth. It’s not straightforward, particularly now we’re living in the Trump years. But it seems much more apt to me that this Atticus is definitely not, shall we say, the Gregory Peck-style saviour of Robert Mulligan’s 1962 film adaptation!”
Reinvestigating Atticus
Talking to Richard, his close personal relationship with Atticus Finch is astonishingly palpable. Having originally played the role in the West End in 2022 and reviving it three years later, does he
feel as though he’s closer to one of American literature’s most prominent fictional characters than even Harper Lee herself might have been?
“I’ve lived with Atticus since I first read the book as a teenager and it made a profound impact,” says Richard. “On from that, I’ve been able to use my months in the West End as a foundation from which to re-examine and interrogate everything about who Atticus is, and settle back into him in a different way.
…this production has been – and is – one of the highlights of my career.
“It’s been lovely returning to him, and discovering new aspects of his personality. It’s a joy, and it’s been really important, both personally and professionally, to reinvestigate Atticus and see where I’m at now, and where he’s at too. I feel a deep kinship with him in so many ways; he taps into something deep and native within me.”
That sounds emotionally – let alone physically! – challenging?
“The performance and the actual discipline of the play is very demanding – I’m on stage for most of it, and it’s an Aaron Sorkin piece so it has a propulsion to it and a huge energy demand,” Richard concurs. “But despite that, I’m really enjoying the experience of touring the play. I’m getting to spend time in towns and cities I’ve never visited before, and I’m really enjoying feeling what it’s like being somewhere else for a while. It’s nice, seeing people just getting on with their lives in different places, in different ways. So overall, the whole process is a total joy – and what a gift to be able to tell this story!”
Richard adds: “It’s amazing seeing the effect it has on the audience, especially schoolchildren and young people – the kids are engaged, bang, they’re there, right with you; you can hear a pin drop at key moments. And that just tells you how relevant To Kill a Mockingbird is today.”
Timeless appeal
Ah, relevance; reading the glowing reviews of Richard’s performance and the production as a whole to date, very few fail to emphasise the still vital significance and timely pertinence of the play 65 years on from the original book’s publication.
“To Kill a Mockingbird will always be relevant for a number of reasons,” says Richard. “Obviously, we still have major issues around racial injustice – and indeed, injustice full stop. And morality: questions around morality are always relevant, and should always be kept in check. But I think what’s particularly important, over and above but deeply connected to the race question, is how and what we teach children. The methods may change but I think we all agree that it’s vitally important that we teach children lessons of morality – simply, how to treat people well, and how to be in the world.”
And Richard’s place in the world, right now, is all about Atticus Finch; when I ask him what may come next on his schedule, although he hints at projects-to-come, he’s very keen to remain in the present.
“I love what I do, and I love the work, and there’s always something really exciting about finding the thing in every job that lights you up,” he says. “But I would definitely say that this production has been – and is – one of the highlights of my career: this story, this book and this character mean so much to me personally. That’s why I came back for the tour; I want to put my passion into telling this story again and again. And it’s really important to bring the production out, away from the London bubble; it’s vital that theatre is accessible to everybody.”
Before our conversation ends, Richard and I end up back-and-forthing a bit more about his previous statement regarding the importance of learning how to treat people well. Are we getting there, Richard?
“Ah, that’s almost the last line of the play!” he says. “Atticus says, ‘Joy cometh in the morning’, and the Finch family’s African-American housekeeper Calpurnia responds, ‘Morning’s taking its sweet time getting here’. But yes, we’re getting there; I really believe we are.”
And Richard Coyle’s Atticus Finch is one of the best tour guides we could choose to rely on to assist us on that journey.
To Kill a Mockingbird, Theatre Royal Bath, 11-22 November