Detaining Justice
Justice is locked in a cold dark cell, his asylum application pending. His sister Grace would like to help, but has been told to leave it in God’s hands. Government Prosecutor Mark Cole has an infallible reputation for successful prosecutions - however he has had a change of heart – and job. His first case is for the defence of Justice – but, in his new role, is Cole the man to help? The cloud of recession looms, unemployment rises, and the fight to remain is tougher than ever.
3.2 out of 5 based on 10 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Location |
London |
| Venue |
Tricycle Theatre |
| Director |
Indhu Rubasingham |
| Cast |
Karl Collins, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith Aml Ameen |
| From |
November 2009 |
| Until |
December 2009 |
| Box Office |
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Justice is locked in a cold dark cell, his asylum application pending. His sister Grace would like to help, but has been told to leave it in God’s hands. Government Prosecutor Mark Cole has an infallible reputation for successful prosecutions - however he has had a change of heart – and job. His first case is for the defence of Justice – but, in his new role, is Cole the man to help? The cloud of recession looms, unemployment rises, and the fight to remain is tougher than ever.
Reviews
The Independent
Paul Taylor
"But one of the many virtues of Bola Agbaje's wonderful play Detaining Justice is that its generous, questioning, humorous spirit refuses to be confined to a drama of simple dialectics. Presented in a production of pitch-perfect performances and pointed zest by Indhu Rubasingham, the play radiates from the central problem in ways that are richly provocative and often rather politically incorrect."
03/12/2009
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The Independent on Sunday
Kate Bassett
"Agbaje is a bold and promising writer, remarkable for her ability to combine bleak experiences with comic relief."
06/12/2009
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The Stage
Aleks Sierz
"Jimmy Akingbola gives Alfred a satisfying maliciousness, while Kobna Holdbrook-Smith excels as Pra, whose comic exchanges with Cecilia Noble’s Abeni and Rob Whitelock’s Jovan are the high point of the first part of the play. Detaining Justice successfully makes its case through emotionally truthful acting and a passionate concern to give a believable picture of asylum-seekers in Britain today."
01/12/2009
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The Daily Telegraph
Charles Spencer
"This is a gripping if sometimes sprawling drama and its often bleak subject matter is shot through with sharp humour and unsentimental compassion for its characters."
01/12/2009
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The Times
Benedict Nightingale
"If I’ve a complaint about this play it isn’t that it’s over-obviously didactic, though it can be. Agbaje thinks, cares, argues and writes pretty good dialogue. It’s that she seems to mistake bickering for dramatic conflict. I’ve never seen so many quarrels on one stage, some of them gratuitous, unmotivated and adding little or nothing to the central points at issue"
02/12/2009
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The Sunday Times
Maxie Szalwinska
"Indhu Rubasingham's production wins your goodwill early on with combative comic banter between illegal immigrants doing drudge work, and between Mark and a bright but daffy student lawyer called Chi Chi. Agbaje shows that skin colour is no guarantee of kinship: the Home Office case worker determined to deny Justice the right to remain in the UK is black. But did all of the immigration officers here have to be unfeeling beasts? Likeable enough, and no more."
06/12/2009
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The Evening Standard
Henry Hitchings
"Director Indhu Rubasingham shrewdly regulates the play’s different registers. Two or three scenes are overlong and the moral significance is at times too loudly vented, but there is a pleasing sense of pace, and Detaining Justice provides a gutsy conclusion to the Tricycle’s rewarding Not Black and White season. "
01/12/2009
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The Financial Times
Sarah Hemming
"Indhu Rubasingham’s sparky production, delivered by a fine cast, brings out the play’s strong points. There is a lovely, understated performance from Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Grace, while Aml Ameen conveys Justice’s wounded dignity and increasingly hardened response to his treatment. This is undoubtedly a crucial issue and the play does teach you a fair amount, but you feel too often that that is what it is doing."
04/12/2009
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The Guardian
Michael Billington
"Her new play, the third in a season by black British playwrights, moves on to the big issue of immigration. But, while it has vigour, it leaves loose ends untied and feels more like the product of conscientious research than lived experience."
02/12/2009
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The Spectator
Lloyd Evans
"The play is steeped in envious longings for family life. It’s also horribly misogynistic. As the pile of girl-baiting insults grew higher, the women in the audience tittered away approvingly which led me to deduce that women are far more committed misogynists than men."
25/11/2009
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