\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>hree years ago, playwright Suzie Miller gave Jodie Comer a career-defining role with her West End debut in Prima Facie. Rosamund Pike\u2019s stage CV already has plenty of highs, from Hitchcock Blonde to Hedda Gabler, but her performance in Miller\u2019s follow-up play has been keenly anticipated, given that it reunites some of the team that made Prima Facie a smash hit.<\/p>\n This is an almost deliberate counterpoint to Prima Facie, in which a defence lawyer, expert at playing the system to demolish rape charges against her clients, is undone by her own experience of sexual assault. Miller wanted to highlight how poorly the law serves victims, and Inter Alia presents the same issue from the flipside with a female judge, determined to make the system more just, whose world is upended by an accusation close to home.<\/p>\n Jessica Parks (Pike) is the kind of multi-skilled woman you just know the legal system needs more of. She brings humanity and compassion to her courtroom, employing her soft skills to protect vulnerable witnesses while cutting down cocky male counsel with a tone that can \u201ccut through tendons and bone\u201d. But she\u2019s not just a crown court judge, she\u2019s also an expert juggler, in the way that high-achieving women so often need to be. Her career exists \u201cinter alia\u201d \u2013 as Miller puts it, in the cracks of everyone else\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n <\/span>Humanity and compassion \u2026 Jasper Talbot, Jamie Glover and Rosamund Pike in Inter Alia, designed by Miriam Buether.<\/span> Photograph: Manuel Harlan<\/p>\n All the hallmarks of Justin Martin\u2019s pulsating direction are here, from the onstage guitar and drums ratcheting up the tension to Pike\u2019s physical, occasionally anarchic performance. She is in constant motion, wearing many different outfits \u2013 karaoke queen, sexy wife, Marigold-clad dishwasher and laundrywoman \u2013 and Miriam Buether\u2019s set combines with Natasha Chivers\u2019 lighting to capture the dissolution of boundaries between the courtroom and home.<\/p>\n \u201cYou live like you work, everything done at speed,\u201d a friend tells Jessica: it may sound like a badge of honour, but it\u2019s also an indictment of the society that requires it of her. The term \u201cemotional labour\u201d is never used but is certainly present: while Jessica prepares a dinner party for 16, her husband Michael\u2019s only responsibility is the cheese. He has it delivered.<\/p>\n This is not a solo show: Jamie Glover provides the marital tension as Michael, who has been beaten by his wife to both KC and the bench. Harry, their 18-year-old son, mooches about almost silently, alternating, in Jasper Talbot\u2019s portrayal, between sensitive, sulky and comically drunk. But what begin as peripheral figures \u2013 to be organised, loved and cared for \u2013 are given vital voices of their own as the narrative progresses.<\/p>\n <\/span>Sensitive and sulky \u2026 Jasper Talbot with Rosamund Pike in Inter Alia.<\/span> Photograph: Manuel Harlan<\/p>\n Jessica remains the moral and emotional centre: her tragedy unfolds like that of an Ibsen protagonist failed by those around them. As a mother she has done the best she can, both to shield her child from bullies and to raise him true to her feminist beliefs (there\u2019s a very funny scene where they have the porn talk). But she can\u2019t protect him from social media, or peer pressure or, in the end, himself.<\/p>\n As a lawyer turned playwright, Miller\u2019s work has an ingrained advocacy \u2013 for years, she has used it to argue for social and legal justice. And one of the rare objections to Prima Facie\u2019s script \u2013 the way its didactic dialogue impinged on the drama \u2013 could be upheld here. Determined to give every issue and angle a fair hearing, Inter Alia sheds its nimbleness and wit as it grapples with the serious stuff in its later stages, meaning the pace slows even as the confrontations become more heightened.<\/p>\n As the set darkens and Jessica becomes literally lost in the woods, there\u2019s a sense that we\u2019re all groping, a little blindly, towards an ending, even Pike. But the production remains a searing commentary on the justice system and a purposefully uncomfortable insight into contemporary parenting. Prima Facie remains as relevant as it was three years ago \u2013 a UK tour, with a returning Comer, has been announced for 2026 \u2013 and this is an ideal companion piece.<\/p>\n At the Lyttelton theatre, National Theatre, London, until 13 September. In cinemas from 4 September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Three years ago, playwright Suzie Miller gave Jodie Comer a career-defining role with her West End debut in Prima Facie. Rosamund Pike\u2019s stage CV already has plenty of highs, from Hitchcock Blonde to Hedda Gabler, but her performance in Miller\u2019s follow-up play has been keenly anticipated, given that it reunites some of the team that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[5496,2222,5501,547,324,5498,5500,1085,5497,666,5499,1905,5502],"class_list":{"0":"post-11958","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-alia","9":"tag-drama","10":"tag-facie","11":"tag-inter","12":"tag-legal","13":"tag-pike","14":"tag-prima","15":"tag-review","16":"tag-rosamund","17":"tag-rules","18":"tag-searing","19":"tag-team","20":"tag-theatre"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}