With men representing 96% of the total prison population, some 81,000 families are left without a dad, brother, son or partner.
In The Shadow Of Her Majesty is a new play that looks through the window into a house occupied by one of these since dad to Jorja and partner to Doreen, Nicky, is resident in Pentonville Prison, with ironic coincidence, across the road from where they live in north London.
Jorja is overshowed by her two adult half-sisters who also live with their mum, Gemma and Riley, sometimes also Finlay, Riley’s four-year-old son by drug dealer dad, Gary.
The family dynamics are carefully observed by writer Lois Tallulah. With Doreen drinking herself insensible, often with best friend Trish, Gemma and Riley often step into grown-ups roles although they can childishly rub each other up the wrong way.
Equally, there is also an easy sisterly bond there, one that excludes their teenage half-sibling, leaving 15-year-old Jorja isolated even within her family unit. No wonder she misjudges the inappropriate attentions of a boyfriend she has kept secret.
When Gary is arrested at his cannabis farm, Riley visualises another generation of children visiting their fathers in prison, putting the pattern of their lives onto repeat and testing the resilience of their mothers in rotation.
The story is thoughtfully crafted to reveal the plight as well as the strength of the women, but the writing is patchy, at times capturing the north London argot liberally scattered with fucks and innits and the casually slighting way close relatives will talk to each other, but also putting words into the mouths of the women that jar, seeming unlikely.
There is inconsistent breaking of the fourth wall, with Riley as narrator, and neighbour Jamila, the heavily pregnant wife of another inmate, is a device rather than a character, though played with charm by Nadia Lamin. When she returns to Doreen’s house with a gift, the play loses its direction, stumbling into Christmas-themed sitcom.
For all that, there is something tellingly uncomfortable about this inaugural production of Tallulah’s play. Director Isla Jackson-Ritchie (co-director Lois Tallulah, assistant director Elika Norowzian) has created something naturalistic and intimate, though they should have drawn a line at the inflatable turkey.
Alice Selwyn delivers a well-judged turn as the damaged, believably drunk Doreen, a loving mother who receives the respect of her children, even the confidently wry and incisive Gemma played commandingly by Nancy Brabin-Platt as suits the adult who tacitly heads the family.
When Jennifer Joseph’s ebullient Trish visits, she brings a burst of uncompromising energy and demand for attention to her voice of reason, the opposite of Ella Harding’s overlooked Jorja who fails to be heard.
Lois Tallulah is formidable as Riley. There are heroic undertones to the way she faces a future dealing with the fall-out of Gary’s wrongdoings, but also there is something fearsomely unjust about a system where she has to.