By Aline Mahrud

WORTH A LOOK?: ***1/2

WHEN?: Saturday 15 June, running through 20 July 2024 RUNTIME: 145 minutes including a 20-minute interval) Update: Justine Mitchell replaces Williams. Shows were postponed from Tuesday 18 July and resume Monday 24 July 2024

A sexual assault takes place on an elite university campus and an activist student reports it to the first ever female master of the college hoping for action.

• Read on for reasons including how this is 1 of the most thoughtful new plays we have seen so far this year

Director Polly Findlay (The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, Donmar) speaks to the audience before curtain up and says this new play is evolving in the preview process and this is its 1st performance in its current incarnation.

The cast gives no sign of difficulties in this preview period and particularly impressive is Williams (The Night Of The Iguana, Noel Coward Theatre), currently receiving much acclaim for her ITV portrayal of former Post Office boss Paula Vennells in the groundbreaking Mr Bates vs The Post Office, as the former journalist and now master of the college who disagrees with her students about the best way forward.

What she does so well is articulate the holes in the behaviour of House Of the Dragon‘s Phoebe Campbell, who plays activist Nikki Stewart who reports the sexual assault of fresher Paige Hutson, given life by Liv Hill, who is far more reluctant to make her complaint known.

Campbell blogs about Hutson’s complaint and urges others who have suffered and gone unheard on university campuses to share their stories anonymously to give a sense of the scale of the problem that is being dismissed by those in charge of young people’s education.

Williams treats every complaint with a journalistic forensic focus and wants to speak directly to Hutson who joins the campaign for activists to be heard and then comes under pressure from Campbell’s Stewart to reveal her idendity to national media as hundreds of stories, from both men and women are shared.

We’re reminded of musical Dear Evan Hansen by the validation of the moment as social media is used to share a problem and then amplify it. In the audience we spot actor Angus Wright who we have seen tred these boards many times but most recently in Nachtland at the Young Vic.

What author Kendall Feaver illustrates so brilliantly is the ever-growing generational divide between feminists and there are some lovely moments between Williams’ master of the college and her best friend and fellow lecturer played by Nathalie Armin (A Little Life, Harold Pinter Theatre) who is far less entrenched in her views and open to giving the students’ room in finding a solution to their problem.

However, it’s the play’s denouement that is the problem and while some rivetting storytelling has laid the groundwork for some closing fireworks they never illuminate as much as we would have liked them too.

The acting is strong and Campbell’s uncompromising activist will linger long in the memory as will the content of this flawed but challenging new play which is definitely 1 of the most thoughtful we have seen in the year so far.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy Almeida Tickets
• Have you seen Lia Williams in a show before and what did you think of it? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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