Suzie Miller’s 2022 play Prima Facie was one of those rare theatre events that garner headlines beyond the arts pages. A 90-minute, one-woman tour de force performed by Jodie Comer in her first major stage role, it was a hit in the West End and on Broadway, won multiple awards, and has prompted efforts within the legal profession to address the issues raised by the story. Now Miller, a former lawyer, has expanded the drama into novel form, with mixed results.
Prima Facie is a story of two halves, narrated in a breathless, first-person present tense by Tessa Ensler, an ambitious barrister in her early 30s who has risen from a Luton council estate via Cambridge to a prestigious London chambers.
