Did this make my top 50 of 2025? Check out Read About Stuff’s Favourite 50 Shows of 2025.

Acclaimed actor Rosamund Pike delivers a stunning portrayal as a judge caught in the middle of a personal and professional crisis in this hard-hitting play from the creative team behind Prima Facie. 

Pike is Jessica, a female judge at the peak of her powers as the play opens. We see Jessica handle the arrogance of male prosecutors in her courtroom with aplomb, brought to life so powerfully by writer Suzie Miller and director Justin Martin, reunited following their devastating solo show with Jodie Comer. 

Jessica also juggles being a working mother to her shy son Harry (Jasper Talbot) as well as handling the professional jealousy of her hotshot lawyer husband, Michael, Jamie Glover. Life, though, quickly comes to an earth-shattering halt for Jessica and her family when her son is accused of sexual assault, leaving the judge in a professional and moral quandary. Talbot’s Harry is particularly well crafted in Miller’s script, with an uneasy sensitivity and seemingly naive makeup that provokes discussion about masculinity and its stereotypical presentation. 

Pike’s brilliance lies in her deft blending of the character’s tussle between personal and professional values. The play opens with Pike’s Jessica strutting into her courtroom armed with a mic like a rockstar, and this energy is maintained across its brief runtime (under two hours) primarily through her exceptional individual performance. Miller’s script not only explores Jessica’s strengths, but her vulnerabilities too. The flashbacks to briefly losing an infant Harry in the park are a nice foreshadowing for the potential events in the present, with Pike capturing the numerous horrors a mother can suffer well. 

Furthermore, Miriam Buether’s set design also helps to evoke Jessica’s increasingly fraught state of mind. The eventual blend of the bleak playground setting of Jessica’s flashback nightmares with her well-furnished home works well as her present-day horror comes to life.

While the production is just as hard-hitting as its spiritual predecessor, Prima Facie, it does slightly fall short of the high expectations Miller’s previous work set. It is oddly predictable from the get-go, and while it does lead to a genuinely gripping conclusion, the play’s clear direction of travel does affect its overall impact. 

Nevertheless, this is a tour de force of an individual performance by Pike. It is hard not to be swept up by the increasing terror and paranoia that capture Jessica as her home and professional life threaten to collapse. While this may not garner the same longevity as Miller’s previous work, this unflinching show succeeds in forcing you to question what you would do in Jessica’s impossible situation.