This mini police procedural uses live-stream cameras to manipulate the audience’s point of view in its cat-and-mouse crime story. Comprising a head-to-head between detective Ruth Palmer (Bethan Cullinane) and suspect Cameron Andrews (Jamie Ballard), after one woman has gone missing and another has been murdered, the naturalism of a police interview room is set against a back-screen capturing the pair up close.
It is a shame then that on the day I attended, the technology was not quite working as it should. But perhaps the screen is an unnecessary addition to a simple, yet gripping story about who we picture as a likely criminal, who we excuse and who we believe.
While Cameron’s profile is that of a respectable middle-class, middle-aged high achiever, and his manner is urbane, there is a distant reminder of the incorrect assumptions made about Peter Sutcliffe, who was interviewed by investigating police officers numerous times before finally being arrested.
Written and directed by Jamie Armitage (co-director of the musical Six), the play is inspired by true events and has a slick, Jed Mercurio quality too. It is structured as a series of interviews and we know that Ruth’s suspicions are raised and that she is playing a clever game with Cameron. But it turns out that he is playing his own game back. Both Cullinane and Ballard give compelling performances, variously on the back foot or in command. The tension cranks up until you wait with bated breath for the outcome, with the cameras capturing hands wrung under the table and poker faces as well as aerial views of the room, which adds to the eeriness – as if this visual record might in itself become crime footage.
There is a misfire in the characterisation of John (John Macneill), Ruth’s chauvinistic boss, who is rather too cliched, and his blitheness at the end does not feel credible. Yet overall this is a chilling psychological play that has you on the edge of your seat.
At Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 27 August
