Prima Facie, Harold Pinter Theatre review ★★★★★

In the same week that reports of ever-lengthening wait times for sexual abuse victims to have their cases heard in court hit the headlines again, Australian playwright Suzie Miller’s award-winning play Prima Facie, about a female criminal barrister’s struggle for justice following her own rape, has premiered In the West End. It’s a searing, urgent one-woman show, made all the more compelling in director Justin Martin’s (The Jungle, The Walk) production by an utterly captivating performance from Jodie Comer (Killing Eve, Help, Doctor Foster).

On designer Miriam Buether’s set of imposing, floor-to-ceiling case files, we meet Tessa, a young, working-class criminal barrister, revered by her peers, who struts her courtroom stage while relaying with cocky relish her tactics for discrediting alleged victims and getting the accused off the hook – even if this means watching a criminal walk free.

Jodie Comer in Prima Facie. Photo: Helen Murray

Then Tessa becomes a victim of sexual assault herself – an experience relayed with heart-in-mouth detail by Miller, performed with steady compassion by Comer and directed with delicacy by Martin. The second half of the 100-minute, straight-through play sees Tessa, her self-esteem and professional identity visibly shattered, grappling with her assault and trying to navigate the criminal justice system she’s dedicated her career to upholding. Miller makes the point it’s a system written and re-written by generations of men, one that in cases of crimes like rape 'spins on the wrong axis'.

The two acts are neatly severed not by an interval but by watching Buether’s curtain of rain fall fast and hard in front of the dark stage. Act two is set 782 days after Tessa’s assault, a typical (though, as Miller points out, unacceptable) length of time for a rape case to make it to court. In this time, Tessa has shrunk mentally and grown more isolated, and this shift is visualised by Natasha Chivers’ lighting that throws the barrister-turned-victim under a spotlight while leaving most of the stage dark and ominous.

Jodie Comer in Prima Facie. Photo: Helen Murray

Music’s new queen of female empowerment Rebecca Lucy Taylor, aka Self Esteem, was an inspired choice to compose the soundscape for the production and her tribal, choral cries and panting beats ebb and flow with the rhythm of the play.

Comer, who makes her stage debut in the show, delivers a flawless, tsunami of a performance as Tessa. Captivating us from the start, she carries her audience on each new wave of her character's experience; it’s theatrical storytelling at its finest and we hang on her every word.

Prima Facie has been ‘translated’ from its original Australian setting to London and Liverpool for the UK premiere, and as a result, audiences witness a rare outing for the Liverpudlian’s natural Scouse accent. But the Killing Eve star, known for her well-oiled carousel of accents, slips into several others effortlessly as she animates the various players in Tessa’s story.

Jodie Comer in Prima Facie. Photo: Helen Murray

We know it’s not going to end well for Tessa. What would Prima Facie be saying about the harrowing experience of too many rape victims going through the criminal justice system if it did? Yet the final scene is jarring; something about Tessa facing the audience, sobbing, doesn’t align with the woman we’ve watched thus far. Design-wise though, it makes a powerful statement, with Buether and Chivers lighting individual case files as the chilling point is made that one in three women will experience sexual assault in their lifetime.

Prima Facie is an important, timely drama about consent that makes the point that perpetrators in cases like Tessa’s don’t always fit the profile you’d expect. Let’s hope as many men as women fill up the auditorium each night.

In a landmark move towards making live theatre more accessible, a number of pay-what-you-can tickets to Prima Facie are being made available for every performance of the limited nine-week run.