Emmy-Winner Jodie Comer to Make West End Debut in PRIMA FACIE

According to The Daily Mail, Emmy Award-winning actor Jodie Comer, best known for her acclaimed performance as the assassin Villanelle in the series Killing Eve, is set to make her West End stage debut in Prima Facie, a play from Australian playwright Suzie Miller.

The thriller will have its first performance at the Harold Pinter Theatre on April 15, 2022.

In the play, Comer will portray a criminal attorney whose career is built on defending rapists and discrediting their victims who is then sexually assaulted herself. Following her assault she finds herself at the mercy of the criminal justice system that she once used to her advantage, one that favors men and disbelieves women.

For the West End production, the setting will be changed from Australia to Liverpool.

Miller, who formerly worked as a lawyer, said of the play's subject matter, "I don't know of any sexual assault statement that I've ever taken, where I could ever be convinced that they were lying " she told The Daily Mail, "Remember, not so long ago it wasn't illegal to rape your wife."

She continues, "Let's redefine what consent is. Let's make sure that if you're a man and not socially equipped to read the signs, then learn! Let's bring up boys to know that No Means No."

Prima Facie is an indictment of the legal system's failure to provide reliable pathways to justice for women in rape, sexual assault or harassment cases. It's a work of fiction, but one that could have been ripped from the headlines of any paper, any day of the week, so common you could cry.

Tessa is a criminal lawyer at the top of her game who knows the law permits no room for emotion. To win, you just need to believe in the rules. And Tessa loves to win, even when defending clients accused of sexual assault. Her court-ordained duty trumps her feminism. But when she finds herself on the other side of the bar, Tessa is forced into the shadows of doubt she's so ruthlessly cast over other women.

Turning courts of law into a different kind of stage, this taut, rapid-fire and gripping one-woman show exposes the shortcomings of a patriarchal justice system where it's her word against his.