Review: Consent

Last night I was fortunate enough to be offered tickets to see Nina Raine's Consent, currently showing at the Dorfman Theatre at the National, so I must start this review with a thank you to the NT's wonderful Secondary and FE Education team.

Of Consent, the NT say:

Why is Justice blind? Is she impartial? Or is she blinkered?

Friends take opposing briefs in a rape case. The key witness is a woman whose life seems a world away from theirs. At home, their own lives begin to unravel as every version of the truth is challenged.

Consent, Nina Raine’s powerful, painful, funny play sifts the evidence from every side and puts justice herself in the dock.

Consent is Nina Raine's fourth play, her previous - Rabbit, Tribes, and Tiger Country - all having been well received. Her latest work, which takes a rape case as a starting point for an exploration of the relationships between a ground of friends, is no exception to her run of great writing.

The use of the rape case, and the persuasive strategies of lawyers, as a framing device takes the notion of manipulating the feelings of a jury, then replays the process through manipulating the audience into feeling sympathy and then loathing for each of the characters in turn whilst they toy with one another's' emotions. Raine's writing is excellent in this respect as she is able to contrast the reductionist guilty/not guilty dualism of the courtroom, with the complexities of real life situations: in Consent, no one is innocent, but everyone deserves sympathy.

The dialogue is phenomenally well written, and the humour is sharp, relatable, and, occasionally, very dark. The performances of the cast of seven - Priyanga Burford, Pip Carter, Ben Chaplin, Heather Craney, Daisy Haggard, Adam James, and Anna Maxwell Martin - are solid, and you really do find yourself sympathising with, then hating different characters as the scenes progress.

The set design is neat but sparse, yet does a surprisingly good job of communicating the world in which the characters live. The sound design is less successful, as some of the transitions feel a bit jarring.

My main issue with the play, however, is the fact that the pacing dips in places, and some of the scene changes are a little awkward, but these are hopefully things which will be ironed out as the run goes on.

I would definitely recommend Consent to you, even if the white, privileged, middle-class world isn't something you find you can relate to, as the play is an absolute masterclass in character development and the writing of dialogue. I found myself applauding Raine as much as the actors on the stage.

4/5: Funny but complex: laugh out loud, then go away thinking

The Dorfman Theatre @ The National Theatre

Until 17th May