As any artist will tell you, stepping away from your creation is often the hardest thing. There’s always something, a tweak here and there, that calls for attention. And although opportunities to revisit rarely present themselves, that’s exactly what Richard Coyle has been given. A highly respected actor of stage and screen (including playing Aberforth Dumbledore in Fantastic Beasts), in 2022 Coyle took on the role of Atticus Finch in the West End production of To Kill A Mockingbird. Three years later, he’s pulling on the lawyer’s suit once again for the show’s UK tour.

‘I’ve never returned to a role before, so it’s a new experience,’ says Coyle. ‘But I did feel that I had unfinished business when I left the West End show, and that it was something I’d like to revisit somewhere down the line. So, I was able to re-examine everything and rethink it, but with a really solid foundation to build on.’ There’s also a sense of serendipity for Coyle, who cites Harper Lee’s novel as a guiding light during tough times as a teenager, stating that ‘it’s one of the great privileges of my life to be able to play this role’.

One of the best-loved characters in American fiction, and loosely based on Lee’s own father, Atticus Finch comes with big shoes for any actor to step into. Defending a black man accused of raping a young white woman as the horrifically violent racial tensions of 1930s Alabama rage around them, he’s often viewed as one of literature’s moral saints. But there’s more to him than that, as Aaron Sorkin set out to prove when writing the script for this production. Drawing not just on the source material, but also Harper Lee’s only other published novel Go Set A Watchman (finally published in 2015, it was originally thought to be a sequel but is now widely viewed as a first draft of To Kill A Mockingbird), Sorkin pitches Finch as multi-layered.

‘He’s a much more complicated figure in this production,’ explains Coyle. ‘Because, in a way, he’s a combination of the Atticus from both books. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the character is told from his adoring young daughter’s perspective. Whereas Scout is a grown woman in Go Set A Watchman and sees the politics of the American South, and her father, very differently. So he’s not the white saviour that, in a sense, he was in the Gregory Peck film. His ideas come under a lot of scrutiny in this production and his stance, while honourable and noble, is flawed.’ 

Anyone who has watched actors barrelling through lines in The West Wing or The Social Network will know that Sorkin’s pen is sharp as a rapier, especially when it comes to social and political commentary. As well as lovingly reworking Lee’s original text, he spent time exploring the likes of Breitbart News in order to inform the hate filled vitriol levelled at Finch’s wrongly accused client, Tom Robinson. 

‘Aaron’s pneumatic style gives the show real punch; it’s so fast and energetic,’ says Coyle. ‘And he’s also incorporated words from right-wing websites and chatrooms, and put them into the mouths of characters like Bob Ewell. It’s a very clever updating.’ The fact that almost a hundred years after the novel is set, such language is still used, is testament to the work’s longevity. But that doesn’t make it any easier for those delivering the words or receiving them. Which is why a large part of the rehearsal process was crafting a culture of respect and kindness. 

‘It’s a very conscientious production,’ insists Coyle. ‘A lot of this material is of course racially sensitive, but it’s also quite graphic in terms of abuse. So we’ve had cultural co-ordinators from the UK and the States, and the way the cast speaks to each other and behaves around each other has been handled so sensitively. One of the things I try to uphold in my work is to be impeccable in your artistry, which I think also applies to your behaviour. So it’s wonderful to be in a production where the way we treat one another and care about each other is the core value.’ 

To Kill A Mockingbird tours until Saturday 23 May; Richard Coyle plays Atticus Finch until Saturday 6 December; pictures: Johan Persson.