Powerful stuff - Jodie Comer stuns Garrick audience in award winning play

WHILE I have a deep seated love of the classics, theatre is at its best when it tackles pertinent social issues.

And you don’t get more pertinent or unsettling than the crime of sexual assault.

Killing Eve star Jodie Comer is certain to achieve national treasure status on the evidence of performances like this and I can’t remember the last time I saw a performance that was so flawlessly brilliant.

Comer played Tessa Ensler, a dynamic young barrister with working class roots in Liverpool in Suzie Miller’s award-winning piece staged at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London and shown on screen at Altrincham Garrick last week.

This play left me emotional and deeply angered by the way victims of sexual assault are treated by the judicial system, from the degrading medical examinations to the forensic examination of their private lives.

Just who’s on trial here - the victim or the alleged perpetrator?

Comer may have been only on screen but she may as well have been standing in front of us, delivering a performance so affecting you could hear a pin drop in the auditorium.

This was my first experience of a play screening and if a trip to the capital is impossible for you, why not go and see top class theatre on your doorstep.

I’ve seen many, many memorable performances but Jodie Comer’s Tessa is among the very best.

Star rating - *****

Altrincham Garrick presents a screening of National Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing on September 25. Call the box office on 0161 928 1677.