‘Corruption knows no colour,” remarked Patricia de Lille as she stood facing journalists from the stairs leading into the Durban High Court. Pity anyone who does not heed her words.

In the matter of the State versus Schabir Shaik there is no colour. Nothing. Zero.

Anyone entering the dark wooden interiors of Court A expecting the inarticulate real-life drama of Judge Judy will doubtlessly be disappointed by the protracted funeral service of case CC27/04.

Po-faced resignation characterises the looks of all the players in the attention-grabbing courtroom drama concerning Shaik’s alleged bribe of R1,2-million paid to Deputy President Jacob Zuma.

I use the term drama reservedly.

The closest approximation is Japan’s mind-rotting Noh theatre, which relies on gesture and nuance to drive the action.

Quite why SABC, e.tv and Talk Radio 702 even bothered with urgent applications to the Durban High Court to broadcast the Shaik trial is beyond me. As anyone who has attended one of those pantomime wrestling-extravaganzas that habitually roll into town from the US will know, good TV requires a modicum of acting.

Without the dull thwack of a guy wearing a cape pretend-mauling some equally silly steroid freak whose stage name is the Undertaker, reality can be utterly boring, even when rescued by TV.

Presiding over the funereal *1 proceedings in Durban is Judge Hillary Squires, an ageing man with silver-white hair.

As befits his rank, Judge Squires wears a red cape. If there is something antiquated about the judge it is amplified by the heraldry and etiquette in the court. Anyone entering Court A must bow to the judge, which I note Mo Shaik performs with a solemn stiffness.

If the props in this drama appear tawdry and old, so too is the delivery of the lines by its actors.

In his questioning of Gavin Woods, the former head of Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts, state prosecutor Billy Downer, proved himself about as compelling as a dung beetle painfully manoeuvring its booty to an unseen lair.

Anyone demanding narrative fluency out of this case is best served by the news media, because in court there is a distinct lack of cohesion in the storytelling.

Cut to the chase, demands Judge Squires at one point, his face redder than his crimson cape, as Downer painstakingly presents the sticky gunk that attaches itself to the affairs of the Shaik brothers.

For his part, Schabir Shaik simply square- brackets whole paragraphs of evidence with his green highlighter pen.

He rarely looks up.

As the liturgy *2 unfolds, Judge Squires removes his reading glasses and views the court through upended spectacles. A wooden bench squeaks.

A clerk shifts a handwritten note to her colleague. A policeman nods off. Woods continues speaking.

And to this South Africa listens in rapt fascination *3.

With akcnowledgement to the Sunday Times.

*1 Definition : "of or pertaining to a funeral".

*2 Definition : "a rite or body of rites prescribed for public worship".

Not a good choice of description - this is actually due process honed by over 2500 years of jurisprudence *4, including countless cases, applications, objections, exceptions, rulings, appeals, petitions and judgments.

*3 Indeed.

*4 Definition : "the branch of philosophy concerned with the law and the principles that lead courts to make the decisions they do".