Something of a surprise addition to Scenesaver’s free digital theatre platform, this forty-year-old recording of Nagging Doubt, written and performed by Jack Klaff, was produced for Channel 4 and shown on 25 Mar 1985, the 25th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre.
In 1985, as a tweenager, I only knew bits about South Africa’s apartheid policies. Pop stars were stating, “we ain’t gonna play Sun City.” Nelson Mandela was still in prison and regarded as a terrorist by many governments, including our own. It was the era of the rebel cricket tours, with South Africa banned from competition.
I don’t recall being told about Sharpeville, where white policemen opened fire on unarmed black protesters, killing 69 people, including children. This happened in 1960, so much more than half a century ago.
For Channel 4 to capture Nagging Doubt, written by a white South African and directed by Roger Graef, a director and producer known for his television documentaries, shows its experimental and subversive nature in its early days. It’s hard to imagine anything similar being shown on the channel now.
Jack Klaff, always a powerful presence on screen, plays a multitude of characters in this 52-minute drama, aptly described in its broadcast introduction as “a tour de force.” There are voices from both sides, from politics, journalism, and the state. There are even radio ads of the period and a child’s perspective.
Nagging Doubt is a thoughtful and persuasive call for the end of segregation and prejudice. It has moments that threaten to overpower the medium (I imagine it is even more powerful on stage, where it was last revived in 2010), but it is very watchable throughout.
Apartheid remained in force from 1948 to 1994, when Mandela became South Africa’s first Black president, four years after his release. When Nagging Doubt was televised in America in 1987, it was praised for Klaff’s ability to portray the characters with few props and only a few suggested locations.
Klaff was born in 1951, which makes him a young boy during the events depicted, with his own family (broadly fictionalised here) being caught up in the subsequent arrests of white South African liberals. He created Nagging Doubt for the Edinburgh Fringe, and it still stands up extremely well today.
You can watch Nagging Doubt on Scenesaver now. Other Klaff productions in the season are Lots of Suddenlies (1991) and 50 Minute Hour (also in the early years of Channel 4).
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