Edinburgh Festival Fringe – REVIEW You All Know Me – I’m Jack Ruby! ****

You All Know Me – I’m Jack Ruby!
theSpace @ Surgeons Hall until 24th August
Written & performed by Clifford Barry

Jack Ruby is to some extent the forgotten man of the events surrounding JFK’s assassination, and, with the fiftieth anniversary just a few months away, Clifford Barry’s well researched one man show is a timely re-appraisal of the man. Was Oswald’s killer a Mafia hitman, or, if he was a lone assassin, what was his motivation?

Barry’s monologue takes us from night club to court room and prison cell. Ruby’s social inadequacy and eagerness to please is revealed in an excruciating night club stand-up routine and in his fawning relationship with a prison guard. Coupled with a psychotic tendency evident in his treatment of women and posited by Ruby’s lawyer at his trial, Barry’s Ruby has the capacity to kill, yet his explanation of his motive is moving in its own way. The killer also invites us to consider that given the widespread anger following Kennedy’s death he was merely doing what anybody would have, given the opportunity. The killer having been an early victim of trial by media, Clifford Barry’s credible portrayal of Ruby is likely to find a more sympathetic ear from the audience.

Four Stars ****

Submitted by Michael Moloney