Inner Temple’s wood-panelled Parliament Chamber was the setting for a cast of 17 to present a thought-provoking evening of dramatised reading examining the legality of the Iraq war. 

The writer was Pump Court Chambers’ Nigel Pascoe QC, who has previously brought audiences his one-man show, The Trial of Penn and Mead. He had done a volte-face on his view of the war, initially supporting British PM Tony Blair and his reliance on the so-called ‘dodgy dossier’.

His change of heart prompted his own forensic analysis of the evidence – the result of which was the play – My Country Right or Wrong.

Pascoe, who narrated the story, had put together newspaper cuttings, minutes of meetings, parliamentary debates and other documentary sources, read by the cast who played the dramatis personae involved in the unfolding disaster, with a lone violinist striking up to mark the most portentous moments.

Among them 5RB’s Iain Christie (a former legal adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who has acted for the government in high profile cases before the European Court of Human Rights) played a rather wet Blair, Gareth Frow brought to life US president George Bush, with a comedy Texan accent, before later doubling up as Geoff Hoon MP and Greg Dyke, while Simon Walters took the part of an excitable US reporter before flatting his vowels to morph into William Hague.

Seated in a wide semi-circle, the cast rose sombrely to their feet to deliver their lines, and positioned, as they often were, on opposite sides of the room gave the audience the feeling of being at Wimbledon.

The play is directed towards an imaginary jury – the audience, which during Friday’s performance included a tiny pooch.

Barrister and actor John Bromley-Davenport prompted the jury to consider the evidence, on occasion remarking, in the manner of Michael Dobb’s fictional chief whip Francis Urquhart, ‘You make think that, I couldn’t possibly comment’, before finally asking ‘How say you?’

And the verdict – an interesting run down of the events, recalling the big parliamentary speeches and key moments, that could have benefited from greater pace and a little editing – though not in the manner of the infamously ‘sexed-up’ intelligence report.