Simon Ward reviews Cellular at the Old Red Lion Theatre

Cellular is the latest play from writer-director Dean Stalham. Its punning title refers, of course, to the confined quarters shared by Marj (Jane Gull) and new cellmate Veronica (Vanessa Koster-Goodliffe), but also, perhaps, to the deep visceral damage done to both these women by the men they thought they could trust the most. This is a damning indictment of the legal system, which has failed to take into account the years of suffering which led to the acts for which the women are being punished. Ironically, the treatment meted out to them in the name of justice is not so different to the gaslighting and barbarity which led to their crimes in the first place.

Cellular is a howl of rage against the injustice of it all, and against the inhumanity of the conditions in which the women are held. Two to a cell, one open toilet shared between them, privacy and dignity nowhere to be found. Yet the play is also a celebration of the unlikely camaraderie that can arise in the most adverse of circumstances. And of the solidarity of women in the face of the violence and deceit of men.

Not that there is much sisterly solidarity in evidence when a nervous Veronica tiptoes into Marj’s cell, only to be angrily confronted for daring to infringe on Marj’s space. The old lag of fifteen years’ standing has little time for the newcomer. There is a class divide too – Veronica is middle class and better educated, and although we never get the details of her crime, it appears to be what would be termed ‘white-collar’. Marj, on the other hand, has few qualifications but a burning desire to tell her story. When we first meet her she is scribbling away with furious but frustrated energy to try and set out the truth of what happened to her.

The piece unfolds as a series of vignettes over time. Humour, often dark, is mined from the grim situation, and relations between the two gradually thaw, and then blossom into full blown friendship and even love as they come to understand each other better, and recognise how similar their circumstances actually are. But it is only when Veronica breaks the ultimate taboo and reads some of Marj’s scribblings that they realise the possibility that they might just be useful to each other.

They alight on the legal concept of the ‘slow burn’, meaning that the courts will accept that constantly repeated mistreatment and violence over an extended period of time can amount to provocation, and therefore provide extenuating circumstances for a crime. The play itself is a slow burn – the bantering back and forth between the two over the absurdity of sharing a tiny space gradually builds to a series of devastating revelations which are almost unbearable to hear. It is a gut-punch of a finale to a beautifully crafted polemic.

Cellular is running at the Old Red Lion Theatre, 418 John St, London EC1V 4NJ until Tuesday 3rd November