Ruth Leon recommends… Prima Facie – National Theatre

Prima Facie – National Theatre

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For nearly all of last year, the one totally unavailable theatre ticket in London was for Prima Facie, the one-character play starring the extraordinary Jodie Comer.  You simply couldn’t buy a ticket for love nor money and many of us missed it. The run was much too short and, almost before you knew it, it was over and the play, with Jodie Comer, had decamped to New York where it was equally sold-out.

Bless the National Theatre for understanding that these remarkable and unique performances  need to be preserved and made available to a wider audience.

Prima Facie is not an easy watch. It gives us an insight into the life of an accomplished young barrister, one who has worked her way up from working class origins to be at the top of her game, specialising in defending rape cases. In Prima Facie she, as well as the rest of us, begin to understand the yawning gap between intellectual understanding of sexual abuse and the lived experience of the abused.

Comer plays every person her protagonist encounters in her quest for justice for the rape victim and gives each true weight of performance, accent, and attitude. This is a shape-shifting performance which, now that the National has given us the opportunity to watch it online, I wouldn’t have missed.

Jodie Comer made her West End debut in this UK premiere of  Suzie Killer’s  award-winning play and what a debut it was. Prima Facie and Jodie Comer take us to the heart of where emotion and experience collide with the rules of the game.
​Directed by Justin Martin.

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