Prima Facie - Harold Pinter / Cinema Broadcast

Was at the Pinter this evening and I have to say this was excellent in every regard. Boy can this lady act..The brilliant book and staging really helps Jodie to showcase all her talents..Every emotion is on display. I couldn't take my eyes off her. Absolutely command's the stage. So confident. I didn't see any weakness in the production and didn't want it to end..Music is added throughout with heavy base at times that could annoy some.
Audience on the whole were well behaved. I noticed what I believe to be some kind of security guy amongst the ushers keeping an eye for potential problems..I really hope it doesn't get spoiled by a minority of fans as it deserves the upmost of respect.
Awards galore i would imagine and wouldn't surprise me a run on Broadway if scheduals work..
Bravo..if I could give it 6 out of 5 I would...

What accent does Jodie use for the role?

Thanks, for some reason I thought because it's by an Australian playwright, that Jodie Comer might play the character(s) in an Australian accent but I assume they've made changes so that it makes sense to a British audience.

It's a one woman show.
Let's be honest. We are all going for her.
Nobody is going for the show.

Haven't tried myself but overheard somebody saying they started queuing at 6 and were joined by other people around 9. They received standing tickets at the back of Balcony.

Well this was brilliant! 1 hour 45 mins flew by. Amazing lead performance, she will definitely win an award

I've seen a few one-woman plays over the years. I think my last was Carey Mulligan in Girls and Boys at The Royal Court, which set a useful benchmark for tour-de-force performance standards and the power of stage drama.

By comparison, Prima Facie, with all its advance hype, disappoints. The subject of women rape victims unable to get justice has been dealt with better and more compellingly before.

Moreover, if Suzie Miller's script is the case against the established legal system, it does not require much thought to counter it. It is quite right in my view, that in a case of one person's word against another, the courts should find in favour of the defendant, unless there is compelling evidence to support the plaintiff. That will continue to mean that many rape victims will not get justice, but there is no reasonable alternative, unless we want to start locking up people purely on someone's say-so. Certainly, Miller offers no solutions.

In fact, the real problem with the police and with the legal system is their underfunding. I know from a barrister friend that the hours Miller affords her protagonist to prepare and fight and win cases, is entirely fanciful. Criminal defence barristers, unless their clients are exceptionally wealthy, rarely get papers well in advance. It's common to have to prepare for the following day's cases only the evening before.

As for Jodie Comer's performance, she has a lot of almost non-stop dialogue, and she rattles through it at quite a pace. There were times when I felt a more experienced actor would know where to pause for effect. A pause can often share more about what a character is thinking than the words spoken. Of course, this may also be due to bad direction.

The opening scene, where Comer's barrister climbs on to a table to recount a past court victory, is written, acted and directed badly. I feared a car crash lay ahead, but, by the next scene, Comer settles into the dialogue, and delivers what is a competent performance, no more. She has her moments though, particularly in the scenes with her mother, and during the latter parts of Act 2.

There is an intermittent ambient music score that does little to enhance the piece. As an aficionado of film music, I intensely disliked the styles chosen here and felt they jarred with the scene they overlaid. Whether it would have worked better with different music or with none at all, I am not sure. I suspect the latter.

Miriam Buether's set design is tone perfect: they always seem to have brilliant sets at the Pinter.

The dramatic crescendo at the end of Act 1 demands time to take in and process. That we plough straight on to Act 2, set over two years later, after a two-minute pause while Comer changes costume off-stage, felt entirely inappropriate to me. An interval at this point would have been an improvement.

The audience was impeccably behaved, save for the man directly behind Stalls seat C9 who thought it was fine to tell his companion what he thought several times.

Three stars.

Act 1: 19:36-20:22
Act 2: 20:24-21:17

Absolutely breathtaking. Never had an experience like it in a theatre.

I can't wait to see Jodie Comer live

There’s one on the Noticeboard for 25 quid. 

I echo this. Caught it a few days ago and the audience response was rapturous, to say the least. I can't quite believe it's Comer's stage debut - a challenging performance on multiple levels that she absolutely owns. Feels like tickets are becoming like gold dust.