An Interrogation had a sold-out Edinburgh Fringe staging in 2023 but was restricted by its Summerhall time slot. Here, writer-director Jamie Armitage offers a slightly longer version, though still running only a concentrated 75 minutes.
It is set in a police interview room where DC Ruth Palmer, played by Ruth Sheehy, confronts well-connected businessman Cameron Andrews (James Ballard, who played him in Edinburgh). It is a voluntary interview: Andrews hasn’t been arrested, the police are just “pursuing enquiries,” but the situation is urgent.
This is a case of a young woman who has suddenly disappeared and, as text on a large video screen on the back wall of Sarah Mercade’s stark set informs us before the play opens, in cases of abduction, the victim has a life expectancy of 72 hours. It is already 68 hours since Joanna Nelson disappeared.
Throughout the performance, that screen, unseen by those in the interview room, will usually show the audience the overhead view, which is the police record, but they also see cut-away close-ups of not just faces, which may reveal reactions not seen at a distance, but the uncontrolled, nervous twitching of hands hidden under the table that contradict the image their owners are trying to present.
Palmer is a persistent detective, and it's a game of cat and mouse, though the police seem without obvious evidence. There are no fingerprints or DNA, and the mouse is a big one who has a strong alibi for the critical time of the abduction, and he confidently tries turning the tables. There is a clear contrast of backgrounds, and class prejudices are very apparent, but is the detective more canny than she appears to be? Is her boss being manipulative or a bit of a misogynist?
There is a hint of a critique of policing in the interaction between Palmer and her boss, John Culin (Colm Gormley), but the emphasis is on the development of the interrogation with its apparent calm interrupted by outbreaks of anger and significant silences, its tensest moments suddenly relieved by laughter. You are never quite certain when these characters are being themselves and when they are performing—a complex reality that the actors make convincing.
A crime, and the need to prevent its completion, feeds the tension, but this isn’t a crime story or a tale of detection—it's a confrontation that makes you watch every little thing.