Encore

I went with my two theatre buddies to see the NTLive cinema showing of Prima Facie. I knew from seeing it two years ago that I wanted to focus on the way that Jodie Comer, alone on stage for almost two hours, transforms her character from confident and certain to beaten and broken. It is an astounding, gripping performance. 

Suzie Miller's writing, too, is very clever, exposing from the inside how the judicial system is stacked against someone too traumatised to give evidence that meets its requirements for 'justice'. And how small gestures can show whether someone understands your experience and how alliances are not necessarily where you think they are.

We were all transfixed all through and I was fascinated to come home and read that two years ago I found the second half polemical. Not this evening. Nothing has changed about the film. The change is about what I have brought to it.

And a cascade of coincidences:
A bonus of getting into town too early: I phoned Secondborn, just back in Oxford from day two of her new job, who not only happened to be very close to where I was, with about the same amount of time to fill, but who also would be free tomorrow evening to join me at a performance in the place where we both used to work (not at the same time) involving someone we both know. We met there to buy her a ticket then bumped into him! We agreed to meet after the show as he wants honest feedback.
Then it turned out that one of my theatre buddies is performing in the second show in the same place tomorrow evening so they will both be there. I'm not sure whether Time will allow me to get the that as well but I'll try.

This all feels very good, after a fortnight of being too reclusive.