Theatre review: An Interrogation

Cameron (Jamie Ballard) is the founder and CEO of a successful consultancy firm with government contacts; he's got a ruthless reputation tempered with charity work, and he spends most weekends looking after his aging mother. But police officer Ruth (Rosie Sheehy) is pretty convinced his mild image is distracting from more than just the large swathes of redundancies his company has been responsible for: She also believes that he kidnapped and murdered one of his employees a few months back. Now another young woman is missing, and if it's the work of the same person she might have been kept alive for up to 72 hours. The Reading police are under pressure to find the second victim while she's still alive, and with hours to go Ruth has been given the chance to try out her hunch: With her boss watching from a nearby room, she'll interview Cameron alone.

Although we do get to see her boss John (Colm Gormley,) writer/director Jamie Armitage's fictionalised version of a real case (originally conceived as a verbatim piece) is mostly a two-hander between the young policewoman, who's willing to overplay quite how much of a rookie she is if it'll put her at an advantage, and the man who initially believes he's been brought in for a routine questioning to eliminate him from the suspect list. It's a familiar setup from many a police procedural, and obviously the audience is primed to expect Cameron is guilty, but it quickly becomes apparent that any evidence is circumstantial at best, and Ruth is going to have to trick her suspect into a confession.

There's a slight political undercurrent in the way Cameron represents a familiar figure of the rich, privileged white man with friends in high places whose position makes him essentially untouchable; the play's ending also raises some questions about the way female police officers are treated within the force. But essentially it is a version of a scene that could have appeared in Line of Duty or Unforgotten, albeit a very well-done one with Sheehy and Ballard really getting stuck into their cat-and-mouse game.

Sarah Mercade's interrogation room is suitably oppressive and Dan Light's video projects the security footage onto the wall giving us different perspectives on the power dynamic - including close-ups of their hands nervously twisting under the table. It's not a groundbreaking format but it's well-executed for the stage, and an entertainingly tense hour.

An Interrogation by Jamie Armitage is booking until the 22nd of February at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs.

Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes straight through.