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It's Feminism vs. a Mother's Instinct on a London Stage
It's Feminism vs. a Mother's Instinct on a London Stage

New York Times

time7 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • New York Times

It's Feminism vs. a Mother's Instinct on a London Stage

By day, Jessica Parks is a formidable judge in a London court, handing down sentences to drug-dealers, sex offenders and domestic abusers. By night, she's a floundering parent to a teenage son who is being bullied at school. When he is accused of raping a female classmate, Jessica's maternal instincts butt up against her feminist politics. She has always argued that victims must be believed, but her son protests his innocence, and she feels duty bound to stand by him. That's the gist of 'Inter Alia,' written by Suzie Miller and directed by Justin Martin, a successor to the pair's 2023 Olivier and Tony Award-winning 'Prima Facie.' In that play, a defense attorney known for her uncompromising cross-examinations of rape victims is herself subjected to a sexual assault. This follow-up, which runs at the National Theater in London through Sept. 13, essentially inverts the plotline: Whereas in 'Prima Facie' the criminal justice system was on trial, in 'Inter Alia,' the family unit is in the dock. Rosamund Pike, of 'Saltburn' fame, is vibrantly engaging as the embattled heroine, and her commanding stage presence carries an otherwise pedestrian production. Jessica is indefatigably energetic, whether declaiming from atop a table or belting out karaoke numbers. And she's sassy: Regaling us about a conversation with her lawyer husband, Michael, as she irons her son's shirt, she archly points the iron upward and emits a puff of steam when she speaks his parts to indicate her disdain. We are invited to note the contrast between her strong, capable persona and the vulnerable human being underneath it; on several occasions, Jessica remarks on the need to modulate between her 'stern voice' and a softer register — all life is a performance, whether in the courtroom or the living room. Jamie Glover plays Michael with a perfunctory insouciance that befits the role: He is mildly envious of his wife's superior professional status, while she resents him for abdicating the 'emotional lifting' of parenthood. Jasper Talbot as the couple's son, Harry, looks a bit older than the character he's playing, but makes up for it with a sulky bearing and listless, waddling gait. Both these male roles, as written, are somewhat wooden — they are essentially props in what feels, for large swaths, like a one-woman show. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Rosamund Pike looks quirky in a pair of hot pink leather gloves at the press night of her new play Inter Alia
Rosamund Pike looks quirky in a pair of hot pink leather gloves at the press night of her new play Inter Alia

Daily Mail​

time7 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • Daily Mail​

Rosamund Pike looks quirky in a pair of hot pink leather gloves at the press night of her new play Inter Alia

Rosamund Pike put on a quirky display as she celebrated her performance in Inter Alia at a press night after party at The National Theatre in London on Wednesday. The actress, 46, who stars as a High Court judge in the play, wore a floral two piece set consisting of a crop top and midi skirt. She teamed her outfit with a pair of black stiletto heels and opted for a subtle makeup look. Inter Alia, by Australian writer Suzie Miller, comes from the team behind Prima Facie, which starred Jodie Comer. It follows Rosamund's character Jessica Wheatle who is working to change the legal system while juggling her home life as a wife and a mother. Her husband Michael is portrayed by Jamie Glover while Jasper Talbot stars as their son Harry. It comes after revealed she was punched in the face and had her mobile phone snatched violently out of her hand by a 'mugger' on a bicycle. The Gone Girl star spoke of her '15 minutes' of hell when she was targeted by the thief in 2006 as she spoke to her mother while walking down the street. She said she screamed in terror and her mum, Caroline Friend, was left fearing the worst until she was able to call her back on another phone. Rosamund, who starred with Piers Brosnan in Die Another Day (2002), told Magic Radio: 'I was on the phone to my mother — on a mobile phone walking along a road — and I was mugged. 'The phone was snatched so all she heard was me scream and a thud and the phone went dead.' She said the 'mugger' was a kid who sped past her on a bicycle and punched her down the side of her cheek. Rosamund, who was born in London, said the thief took her mobile phone and left her with a bruise on her face. The actress is one of a number of celebs who have fallen victim to the terrifying trend of phone snatching that is sweeping London. Former tennis star Annabel Croft said her mobile was stolen 'clean out of her hands' while she waited for a taxi outside London King's Cross station in June last year. Ms Croft wrote on Instagram: 'I just wanted to warn people who are on their own in London. I just got mugged waiting for a taxi outside King's Cross St Pancreas. 'The man was riding a bike and wearing a black balaclava. He rode straight at me and took my phone clean out of my hands. 'He rode away with it but luckily dropped my phone so I got it back. Terrifying!'

Rosamund Pike is riveting in theatre's spin on Adolescence
Rosamund Pike is riveting in theatre's spin on Adolescence

Telegraph

time7 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • Telegraph

Rosamund Pike is riveting in theatre's spin on Adolescence

Boasting the triumphant return of Rosamund Pike to the stage after 15 screen-dominated years away, Inter Alia is the eagerly awaited follow-up to Prima Facie from Australian lawyer-turned-playwright Suzie Miller. That phenomenal one-woman play about sexual assault, consent and the failings of the criminal justice system was an award-winning tour de force for Jodie Comer in the West End in 2022 and then on Broadway. Inter Alia has a lot in common with its agenda-setting predecessor: aside from its title being another Latin legal term and Justin Martin directing again, the play revisits the emotive subject of sexual offences and how the law works, only this time involving teenagers. It grips, too, and is gut-wrenching, but in comparison feels sketchier. Comer played a top-flight barrister whose confidence in herself and the law takes a battering following a sexual assault that finds her experiencing the legal system from the other side. Here, Pike plays Jessica, a high-powered Crown Court judge whose desire to see better treatment and outcomes for female sexual assault victims runs up against the mother of all agonised upsets on the home-front, when her own 18-year-old son stands accused of rape following a boozy party. Once again, the piece calls for a transfixing, shape-shifting performance from its star, and the hurtling 105-minute action showcases Pike's theatrical bravura. She can hold a stage as vast as the Lyttelton with immaculate assurance. But where Prima Facie was a full-on monologue, here we also see the characters closest to Jessica – her husband Michael (Jamie Glover), a successful, competitive silk himself, and shy, troubled son Harry (Jasper Talbot). That enlargement of scope is a mixed blessing. Where the comparable Netflix hit Adolescence got under the skin of 'toxic masculinity', what comes across here is a palpable sense of maternal helplessness but also a lack of insight into what's really going on with her child. When we first see Pike's heroine, she rises up on a platform in wig and gowns, with a mic in hand, striking the attitude of a rock star, the swaggering, tongue-in-cheek touch augmented by accompaniment on guitar and drums (a skulking Glover and Talbot). That poise – evidence of her courtroom command – comes under pressure from her multi-tasking requirements as a mother. Diving in and out of different clothes, Pike is coolly efficient, wryly confiding and forever pulled in different directions (Miriam Buether's set conjuring legal realm, affluent kitchen and darker hinterlands). Her hurried lifestyle – with darting evocations of Harry's childhood too as she broods over past parenting – can seem entertainingly frenetic but the overload has had a cost; the online world has become Harry's surrogate shaping influence. Glover and Talbot bring a brusque reticence and contrasting despair to their roles but the script positions them almost as peripheral. As more information is revealed, our sympathies shift – and that takes in Jessica herself; caught between knowing how the legal system works, how it should work, and her own protective instincts as a mother. She's sent into a freefall, anguish and self-recrimination memorably etched on Pike's face. I suspect a lot of parents will identify with the scenario: the peril of complacency, the dread of catastrophe. And if the evening stirs debate about how one generation guides the next, how men should behave and how the culture can foster respect, safety and justice for women, it's all to the good. Whether it will have the same impact of Prima Facie is open to question. Until Sept 13. Tickets:

Inter Alia review – Rosamund Pike rules in searing legal drama from Prima Facie team
Inter Alia review – Rosamund Pike rules in searing legal drama from Prima Facie team

The Guardian

time23-07-2025

  • Entertainment
  • The Guardian

Inter Alia review – Rosamund Pike rules in searing legal drama from Prima Facie team

Three years ago, playwright Suzie Miller gave Jodie Comer a career-defining role with her West End debut in Prima Facie. Rosamund Pike's stage CV already has plenty of highs, from Hitchcock Blonde to Hedda Gabler, but her performance in Miller's follow-up play has been keenly anticipated, given that it reunites some of the team that made Prima Facie a smash hit. 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. 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 'cut through tendons and bone'. But she's not just a crown court judge, she's also an expert juggler, in the way that high-achieving women so often need to be. Her career exists 'inter alia' – as Miller puts it, in the cracks of everyone else's lives. All the hallmarks of Justin Martin's pulsating direction are here, from the onstage guitar and drums ratcheting up the tension to Pike's physical, occasionally anarchic performance. She is in constant motion, wearing many different outfits – karaoke queen, sexy wife, Marigold-clad dishwasher and laundrywoman – and Miriam Buether's set combines with Natasha Chivers' lighting to capture the dissolution of boundaries between the courtroom and home. 'You live like you work, everything done at speed,' a friend tells Jessica: it may sound like a badge of honour, but it's also an indictment of the society that requires it of her. The term 'emotional labour' is never used but is certainly present: while Jessica prepares a dinner party for 16, her husband Michael's only responsibility is the cheese. He has it delivered. 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's portrayal, between sensitive, sulky and comically drunk. But what begin as peripheral figures – to be organised, loved and cared for – are given vital voices of their own as the narrative progresses. 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's a very funny scene where they have the porn talk). But she can't protect him from social media, or peer pressure or, in the end, himself. As a lawyer turned playwright, Miller's work has an ingrained advocacy – for years, she has used it to argue for social and legal justice. And one of the rare objections to Prima Facie's script – the way its didactic dialogue impinged on the drama – 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. As the set darkens and Jessica becomes literally lost in the woods, there's a sense that we're 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 – a UK tour, with a returning Comer, has been announced for 2026 – and this is an ideal companion piece. At the Lyttelton theatre, National Theatre, London, until 13 September. In cinemas from 4 September.

PATRICK MARMION reviews Inter Alia at the Lyttelton, National Theatre, London: All rise for Rosamund: Pike's a force of nature in electrifying sequel to hit courtroom drama
PATRICK MARMION reviews Inter Alia at the Lyttelton, National Theatre, London: All rise for Rosamund: Pike's a force of nature in electrifying sequel to hit courtroom drama

Daily Mail​

time23-07-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Daily Mail​

PATRICK MARMION reviews Inter Alia at the Lyttelton, National Theatre, London: All rise for Rosamund: Pike's a force of nature in electrifying sequel to hit courtroom drama

Inter Alia, Lyttelton, National Theatre, London Has lightning struck twice? Rosamund Pike was sensational on Wednesday night as a High Court judge in a new play at the National Theatre by Australian writer Suzie Miller – the woman who wrote that other hit play about the law, Prima Facie, starring a similarly sensational Jodie Comer in 2022. Intriguingly, Inter Alia is a mirror image of Prima Facie. Where Comer was Tessa Ensler, a have-it-all barrister defending rape suspects, Pike is Jessica Wheatley, a High Court judge trying and sentencing the same. Both plays have Latin titles and run for 100 minutes without an interval. Both are directed by Justin Martin and designed by Miriam Buether. And both turn the tables on their heroines to create devastating moral dilemmas. The difference is that, unlike Prima Facie, Inter Alia isn't entirely a monologue. We first encounter Pike as a clever, light-touch judge, feminising an alpha-male profession with her 'soft skills'. Then we discover her at home as a crusading super-mum: marinating veg, sorting laundry and doing the ironing – all before heading back to court and 'the manosphere'. Pike's Jessica is a force of nature, going out on karaoke nights with girlfriend barristers. But like every good middle-class mother she's also riven with guilt about not being good enough. And although her supportive husband Michael (Jamie Glover) is a sensitive yet adventurous lover, the god of her idolatry is her son Harry (Jasper Talbot). And it's because of Harry that her seemingly perfect life falls apart, despite best-practice parenting, including warning him about social media and online porn. It's reminiscent of Netflix's smash hit Adolescence, so no prizes for guessing why the wheels come off Jessica's dream. The fact that we can see it coming a mile off simply adds to the sense of dread in Martin's helter-skelter production. The only thing that rankled with me is the play's presumption that we are enchanted by Jessica's middle-class values and 'parenting style'. Even so, Inter Alia – whose title means 'among other things' – plays out like a Greek tragedy. Both the male characters are reduced to benign stereotypes. Michael is a basically good, if corner-cutting husband. And Harry is a basically good, if desperate-to-fit-in son. But Pike... she blazes alone: multitasking in the kitchen and in her judge's chambers, walking a mental tightrope and talking us through her 360-degree collapse. Increasingly uncomfortable to watch, just like Prima Facie it will keep the chattering classes chattering long into the night.

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