'Inter Alia' review — Rosamund Pike reprises her masterful performance in Suzie Miller's legal drama

Read our review of Inter Alia, written by Suzie Miller and starring Rosamund Pike, now in performances at Wyndham's Theatre through 20 June.

Summary

• Rosamund Pike reprises her role as Crown Court judge Jessica Parks in Suzie Miller's legal drama Inter Alia
• Pike first starred in the role at the National Theatre in 2025
• Pike's film credits include Gone Girl and Saltburn

For Suzie Miller, the old adage ‘write what you know’ holds true. The playwright has made a career out of thorny legal-based dramas thanks to her early working life as a lawyer in Australia, but it is in the last few years she has shot to acclaim for the star-led Prima Facie (with Jodie Comer) and Inter Alia. The latter now opens in the West End, following a hit run at the National Theatre in 2025, with Rosamund Pike reprising the role of Crown Court judge and mother Jessica Parks.

The two plays feel as though they are in conversation with each other: while Prima Facie follows a working-class barrister whose faith in the legal system is wrecked after being raped by a colleague, Inter Alia looks at the what happens when a top criminal court judge’s own son is accused of a terrible crime. Miller’s writing uncovers the hypocrisies and horrors at the heart of our courts — how the sticky issue of consent in sexual crimes is used by defence lawyers to tear down victims, and an unpoliced internet hellscape is poisoning the beliefs of young men.

None of this is surprising to us in 2026. TV shows such as Adolescence and documentaries like Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere have made young male violence and misogyny mainstream topics, while other stage plays such as Punch and John Proctor Is the Villain touch on similar themes. What Miller does so adeptly is explore the impossible burden often placed on women, specifically the task of protecting your child whilst honouring your own principles.

Pike masterfully works her way through Miller’s demanding script, hurtling through the lines with precision from the moment she enters the stage, poised with a microphone in hand, as though ready to begin her opening set in a rock band. Her arena is her courtroom, and the fans, her jury.

The breathless production captures the way Jessica’s life constantly runs at 90 miles per hour: in one scene she is chopping vegetables while discussing a child abuse case; in another, she loses sight of her young son Harry in the park while FaceTiming a colleague. She is never still. Even during sex with her husband, Jessica can’t shut out a video depicting sexual assault that had been submitted to her court in evidence earlier that day.

The personal and the professional bleed into one another. Miriam Buether’s set design shows how Jessica’s home life encroaches on her working life, as the huge set piece of the perfectly co-ordinated lime green family kitchen slowly rolls into view to fill the entire stage (and later breaks apart as she discovers Harry’s troubling internet search history), while two small closets are hidden in the wings to represent her chambers. Pike is constantly picking up court wigs, silk dresses, pyjamas, and even an apron styled like a judge’s robes as she nimbly jumps between these two parts of Jessica’s life. Her performance is perfectly judged.

Miller’s script unpacks so much in Prima Facie director Justin Martin’s pacy 1 hour 40 minute production — everything from the horrors of pornography and stereotypes of rape cases, to the female burden of primary caregiving and embedded generational misogyny. Refreshingly, Miller boldly tackles all of these issues head-on, though her descriptive and expositional narration would benefit from a little more subtlety.

Miller also seems to be hankering for the one-woman format of Prima Facie in the show’s first half. Pike’s co-stars Jamie Glover (as husband Michael) and Cormac McAlinden (as son Harry) barely get a look in, serving largely to drive the plot forward. They do, however, both get key moments to shine later on: for Glover, this is when he realises too late he should have done more to guide his son and collapses on the ground, admitting “I don’t know how to teach him about this, I don’t even know how to talk about it.” McAlinden’s performance is equally devastating as he finally reveals the truth of his lie, desperately trying to find excuses and return to a child-like state before understanding the need to own his terrible actions.

Inter Alia shows every mother’s worst nightmare — and proves that even when you do everything ‘right’, your child is still capable of committing terrible wrongs. The powerful final image of Harry and his friends as young children is a reminder of the play’s lost innocence and a persuasive statement that, as a society, we need to do more.

Book Inter Alia tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Inter Alia in the West End. (Photos by Manuel Harlan)