Review Roundup: What Did The Critics Think of the National Theatre's INTER ALIA?

Rosamund Pike (Saltburn) makes her National Theatre debut as Jessica. Writer Suzie Miller and director Justin Martin reunite following their global phenomenon Prima Facie with this searing examination of modern masculinity and motherhood.

Jessica Parks is smart, compassionate, a true maverick at the top of her career as an eminent London Crown Court Judge. At work she’s changing and challenging the system one case at a time. But behind the robe, Jessica is a karaoke fiend, a loving wife and a supportive parent. While managing the impossible juggling act faced by every working mother, an event threatens to throw her life completely off balance. Can she hold her family upright?

What did the critics think?

Inter Alia is at The National Theatre until 13 September and will also be available to watch in cinemas across the country and globe from 4 September with National Theatre Live.

Photo Credit: Manuel Harlan

Aliya Al-Hassan, BroadwayWorld: Pike is a wonderful whirl of energy and emotion throughout, deftly portraying the professional and the deeply personal. She is a wife, a mother, a friend and says more than once that she feels guilty about not being good enough at everything. Pike commands the stage throughout, deftly bringing the audience into her most intimate thoughts and feelings. I predict several awards nominations coming her way.

Lucinda Everett: WhatsOnStage: In the ensuing fallout of the revelations about Harry, the cast excel and Miller’s gnawing questions begin to hit bone. Is Michael’s casual misogyny to blame? Has Jessica’s fierce love let Harry off the hook? Are working parents too busy to protect their children from toxic online influences? Or is the threat so insidious that even the most conscientious caregivers will fail to raise sexually responsible adults?

Dominic Cavendish: The Telegraph: Diving in and out of different clothes, Pike is coolly efficient, wryly confiding and forever pulled in different directions (Miriam Buether’s set conjuring legal realm, affluent kitchen and darker hinterlands). Her hurried lifestyle – with darting evocations of Harry’s childhood too as she broods over past parenting – can seem entertainingly frenetic but the overload has had a cost; the online world has become Harry’s surrogate shaping influence.

Emma John: The Guardian: All the hallmarks of Justin Martin’s pulsating direction are here, from the onstage guitar and drums ratcheting up the tension to Pike’s physical, occasionally anarchic performance. She is in constant motion, wearing many different outfits – karaoke queen, sexy wife, Marigold-clad dishwasher and laundrywoman – and Miriam Buether’s set combines with Natasha Chivers’ lighting to capture the dissolution of boundaries between the courtroom and home.

Clive Davis: The Times: Justin Martin — who also directed Prima Facie — ensures that the tempo never falters. It’s an intensely choreographed evening, executed on a fluid set design by Miriam Buether that brings a rare sense of intimacy to the Lyttelton’s stage. So why do I have reservations? Because Miller’s tale is actually quite slender fare. The writing may be more nuanced than in Prima Facie but you can still see where the story is heading long before the final scene.