Warning: this review mentions sexual assault and sexual violence

Suzie Miller’s play Prima Facie launched in 2019 at Sydney’s compact Griffin Theatre in director Lee Lewis’s intense, taut production with a superb performance from Sheridan Harbridge as defence barrister Tessa. It lays bare the patriarchy of our criminal justice institutions and their prosecution of sexual assault cases.

Justin Martin’s London production bears all the hallmarks of a West End show (it sold out in days when tickets were released last year), its big drawcard being Jodie Comer, of Killing Eve fame. Comer, in her first stage performance since appearing a small production in Yorkshire when she was seventeen, has gone full tilt for this debut: her role is a demanding, unrelenting, 100-minute one-woman monologue.

Jodie Comer stars in Prima Facie at Harold Pinter Theatre, London. Photo © Helen Murray.

London’s Harold Pinter Theatre is small by West End standards, and the packed theatre feels almost as intimate as the Griffin stage, but the set is very different: award-winning designer Miriam Buether’s stage is festooned with floor-to-ceiling shelves full...