The foyer of the Grand Hotel, Charing Cross, December 1906

At first, Jean operates as a narrator. George and Arthur meet for the first time and they request a private room where they may discuss the matter at hand. Arthur gives George one of his books as a gift, and George describes to Arthur the events which led to his arrest.

Jean enters and remarks that Arthur has been driven out of the depression that he had been suffering from, with the intrigue about George’s case. She has followed him into town. George continues to describe his situation, while Upton enters, carrying a table and begins to create a police interview room from the table and some chairs.

Scene Two
Arthur observes as Upton, Campbell and George replay the interview before him. George complains about Upton’s insinuations against him, and suggests that the police use bloodhounds to track the real criminal; his suggestions are treated as a joke.

George continues to describe to Arthur the events that led up to his arrest.

Scene Three
George returns to the police interview room as Arthur observes and witnesses the interview concerning the crimes in Great Wyrley. George describes how he sleeps in the same room as his father with the door locked.

The police claim that they have found horse hairs on George’s clothing that match a pony that has been attacked. Once George returns to the scene with Arthur, a huge shadow of a horse spreads across the stage. It rears and screams. Arthur turns towards it but George remains still.

Maud has been observing the action and makes a comment on George’s situation. Vachell and Meek arrive.

Scene Four
Arthur and Maud disappear while Meek, Vachell and George discuss his pending appearance in court. George specifies that the newspaper should get his ethnic origin correct and that the court should pronounce his name correctly.

Maud narrates as the scene moves to a courtroom, and after more conversation between Meek, Vachell and George, the scene morphs into the trial itself. Maud, Meek and Vachell all use direct address to the audience to narrate the action.

Scene Five
We are now in George’s memory of Mr Disturnal’s cross-examination of his father. George plays his own father in the scene in which Mr Disturnal questions him in detail about a squeaky lock on the bedroom door.

Scene Six
George turns back to see Meek in the court holding room. Disturnal has gone. Arthur and Maud reappear as Meek and George discuss the fact that his parents were bad witnesses.

The chairs and table of the court holding room disappear and the hotel writing room reforms. Maud and George talk to Arthur, recounting how innocent the family trusted George to be. The scene then forms back into the hotel waiting room.

Scene Seven
George summarises that he has serves three years of his sentence and now wishes Arthur to help him clear his name so that he may continue to practise as a solicitor. Arthur agrees to help, and states that he has noticed George’s terrible eyesight…

“The fact you held your newspaper three inches from your face. As to the spectacles, I assure you, the absence of clear dints down your nose are clear testimony as to when they were prescribed. Certainly long after you were convicted of locating, quieting and then mutilating a small pony in the pitch dark in the middle of a field”

…Arthur believes that this may be grounds for proving George’s innocence.

George flicks through the book Arthur has given him. Jean enters and she and Arthur replay how they met. We hear him promise to teach her to ski, and to attend a singing recital she is giving. Jean tells Maud about the fact that Arthur was married when they met, but that his wife was dying.

Scene Eight
Sheets fall and cover the furniture, converting the hotel into a rural snowscape.

Arthur and Woodie have visited the village to look at the crime scenes. Despite Arthur’s attempts to remain incognito, he has been recognised and is approached by Maud. She recommends to him that he insists on seeing ALL of the letters that her father has kept regarding the incident, and she recounts that she and George had a day out in Aberystwyth. She remains cryptic but hints that all may not be well with George.

Scene Nine
Now the sheeted furniture is just that; the scene is in an unused, provate smoking room in the Imperial Family Hotel, Temple Street, Birmingham.

Woodie and Arthur recount their trip to Great Wyrley, and how they purchased various pieces of information. They reflect on three suspects.

Dr Butter enters and Arthur questions him in detail about the horse hairs on George’s jacket, which Dr Butter maintains were from the mutilated animal. Once he has left, Arthur and Woodie make a list of ‘things to do.’ Jean enters and speaks to the audience about her relationship with Arthur, reflecting on the nature of lying.

Scene Ten
The hall at Undershaw, Arthur’s Surrey home.

Woodie enters with luggage, followed by Arthur, who is already ripping open envelopes, tearing our letters, checking their contents and discarding letters which do not currently interest him.

In one letter it appears that the handwriting expert has been discredited, and in another Arthur has an invitation to Captain Anson’s for dinner. The case seems to finally be opening up as Act One ends.

Scene One
Jean’s apartment in St John’s Wood and George’s rooms in Kilburn.

Jean sits drinking tea. Arthur stands in his outer clothes, ready to go out. He has just finished explaining the Edalji case to her.

The scene cross cuts between the two pairs as Arthur muses on marrying Jean and Maud muses about leaving home. Jean also discusses spiritualism and Arthur’s beliefs.

Scene Two
Arthur is in Captain Anson’s study. Anson thinks that George has sent poison pen letters to himself and that George’s father has lied to give George an alibi. Anson suggests that George has committed the crimes as a reaction to not being able to fulfil his sexual desires. Anson notes the sleeping arrangments in the Edalji house, the fact that George does not play ‘manly’ sport, and the fact that he has never been seen in the company of a woman as his evidence.

“And my speculation, based on much experience, is that a continued sexual frustration, year after year after year, can turn a man’s mind. He can end up worshipping strange Gods, and performing strange rites too.”

The conversation ends awkwardly, with both men turning into bed.

Scene Three
Jean’s apartment.

Once again, Jean is sitting calmly. Arthur Rages round. During this, Woodie enters to a table, on which he lays piles of letters, occasionally moving a letter from one pile to another. Towards the end of the scene he hears a doorbell and goes out.

Arthur tells Jean of his plans to go to the press with his speculations on George’s case, and thinks that the police have purposefully formulated evidence against George, and that they have been blind to the possibility that it might not have been George who committed the crimes.

Scene Four
Undershaw, Arthur’s house.

Arthur is musing over the three suspects he has in mind. He recieves an invitation to meet Wynn, and also a threatening letter suggesting that he find George guilty, or lose kidney and liver!

Scene Five
The Rising Sun Inn, Hednesford. Wynn sits at the table in front of an accumulation of pint glasses.

Arthur talks to Wynn about how Wynn received threatening letters accusing him of spitting at an old lady. They discuss the person Speck, who Wynn descrobes as being mad, and who went to sea for seven years.

Scene Six
Littleworth Farm. Mr Greatorex is mending an agricultural mechanism on a workbench.

Arthur describes to Woodie his theory about Sharp (Speck) being the perpetrator as they approach Greatorex, who has the Sharps as tenants on his farm. Greatorex tells Arthur all about the Sharp boys, and that one of them showed his wife a knife used to kill animals.

Scene Seven
Arthur and Woodie are at the train station. Arthur heads to Birmingham, leaving Woodie behind with instructions to go and steal the knife.

Scene Eight
Woodie and Wynn are creeping around in the dark looking for the meatsafe where the knife will be.

Scene Nine
The Grand Hotel, Charing Cross.

George is in the writing room. He has a file of newspaper cuttings, and was readign a document. Jean and Arthur enter, but Jean soon leaves. Arthur describes his theory on Royden Sharp being the guilty party, and produces the knife as evidence.

Arthur leaves, and George expresses to Maud that he is worried that Arthur is trying too hard to be Holmes, and may have therefore jeapordised the case against Royden Sharp.

Scene Ten
Jean’s flat and George’s lodgings.

Arthur strides in, the ripped packaging still in his hand, reading the Government report. At the same time, George sits and opens the same report, watched by Maud. He holds it close to his face to read.

The scene cross cuts and through this we hear the result of the enquiry. George is granted a free pardon but no-one else is to be tried for the crimes. The report is disrespectful both to Arthur’s work and to George. George hopes to be remembered as the first case of criminal appeal.

Scene Eleven
Confetti falls on the stage. Music plays. Palm trees surrounded by ferns, foliage and white flowers appear; we are at Arthur and Jean’s wedding.

George is thrilled to meet Bram Stoker and Jerome K Jerome at the wedding. Jean is thrilled that working on George’s case brought Arthur our of his depression follwing his wife’s death; it is down to George that she is now marrying Arthur. Arthur apologises for making George’s case a cause celebre for racial equality. Jean and Arthur leave.