IMAGES Courtesy of National Theatre, Erin LeCount & James Jacob
In Inter Alia, Suzie Miller’s searing new play and spiritual successor to 2019’s Prima Facie, justice becomes intangible; something felt more than understood. Directed by Justin Martin and starring Rosamund Pike, the production expands Miller’s anthology of work on women in the justice system, this time focusing on a judge forced to reckon with her own complicity. It’s a story about family, generational trauma, and the complexities of parenting in a digital world. It’s also a story told, in no small part, through sound.
Composing the score are Erin LeCount and James Jacob, two artists whose creative partnership has long lived in the alt-pop world. LeCount, recently named one of The Guardian’s ‘Ones to Watch’, has already built a reputation for raw, emotionally-driven work, with her viral track ‘Silver Spoon’ and her EP I Am Digital, I Am Divine establishing her as a rising voice in alternative pop. Jacob, better known as Jakwob for his credits working with Little Simz and Shygirl, lends a deep sonic imagination and ear for detail. Together, their score for Inter Alia resists melodrama, instead turning internal turmoil into atmospheric, jagged, and unexpectedly tender sound.
Suzie Miller’s work has never shied away from exposing the deep flaws in how the justice system treats women. Her breakout play Prima Facie, which starred Jodie Comer in its West End and Broadway runs, sparked widespread conversation about legal reform – even reaching into real courtrooms, influencing how sexual assault cases are prosecuted around the world.
With Inter Alia – which will be broadcast to cinemas across the UK as part of National Theatre Live on 4th September – Miller continues to interrogate these issues at a time when public discourse around gender and justice is increasingly shaped by online platforms, viral misinformation, and polarising figures like Andrew Tate. Much like breakout TV success Adolescence, Inter Alia speaks directly to the confusion and contradictions of a generation coming of age in the glow of technologies whose long-term consequences remain as enigmatic as their allure. Miller’s writing cuts through that noise with nuance and urgency, highlighting how personal pain and public systems collide.
“We’ve faced up to most topics and big emotions while working together,” LeCount explains when asked how the pair approached scoring such tear-jerking material while avoiding traditional tropes. “The difference this time was in facilitating Suzie and Justin’s vision. It’s not our job to tell people in the audience what to feel – it’s just alluding to the shifting tensions.”
With time jumps, inner monologues, and changes in emotional state, the score moves fluidly between courtroom scenes, domestic tension, and the fractured inner world of the protagonist’s son. “The courtroom scenes had such a language to them,” says LeCount.
Said scenes are arranged with Pike downstage, periwig on her head and microphone in hand, surrounded by her husband (Jamie Glover) and son (Jasper Talbot) performing live on guitar and drums. For the composers, this meant writing music tailored to the actor’s abilities. The process was a learning curve for everyone involved, LeCount explains. “They both had some level of basic playing before, but not massively, and so they worked so hard.”
These actors are people playing instruments, but they are also actors using props. Once they understood that it was a part of their character – and not a reflection of their personal skill or shortcomings – they threw themselves into it, which was so helpful for us creatively.
Erin LeCount
Though initially “sort of terrified” by the musical demands, the actors quickly found their rhythm, with Jacob highlighting the collaborative nature of the process: “There was a lot of communication and incrementally changing things. It’s amazing watching actors work and just pick things up and go with it.” Under the guidance of Musical Director Nick Pinchbeck, Glover learned advanced guitar techniques in mere months, adapting to in-ear monitors and effects like delay, reverb, and distortion to create a rich live sound. Jacob attests, “He definitely got the hardest job in terms of musical technique.”
“These actors are people playing instruments, but they are also actors using props,” LeCount adds. “Once they understood that it was a part of their character – and not a reflection of their personal skill or shortcomings – they threw themselves into it, which was so helpful for us creatively.”
LeCount’s own voice weaves through the show like a ghostly presence. “Suzie and Justin really wanted a female voice across the soundtrack,” she says. “That comes in throughout as whispered vocals in the background. We used glitches on the vocals every time that Jessica was in conflict with masculinity.”
Perhaps most striking is the recurring motif of feedback – a high, tense sound with a specific political and emotional implication. “The first question that Justin ever asked me as a prompt for making the music was: what does the patriarchy sound like?” says LeCount. “We had discussions about how it’s like tinnitus – it’s this frequency that’s always present and always around, and sometimes you become attuned to it, and at other times, it is unbearable and irritating and painful.” Jacob agrees: “Going from the feedback sound to the full obnoxious rock band is like this battle that Rosamund’s character is having against the patriarchy, and that was the musical representation of that struggle.”
Though the collaboration between LeCount and Jacob began in the pop world, their process here remained largely the same: intuitive, equal, and deeply trusting. “There were scenes that I felt really strong inclinations on, and scenes that you [James] felt you had more ideas for, and then we’d come together with a bunch of demos,” says LeCount. “It felt like building blocks – we had our palette from quite early on.”
We had discussions about how [the patriarchy] is like tinnitus – it’s this frequency that’s always present and always around, and sometimes you become attuned to it, and at other times, it is unbearable and irritating and painful.
Erin LeCount
What drives their partnership goes deeper than just how they divide the work. “Trust is the most important and fundamental element for collaboration,” says Jacob. “That doesn’t just come through working on music together, that comes through hanging out as well, and being friends.” For LeCount, that trust allows them to go deeper emotionally without getting lost in the darkness: “The fact that we have a laugh and have a good friendship makes that darker stuff so much easier to access.”
Though Inter Alia follows Prima Facie in Miller’s anthology on women and justice, both composers were careful not to be overly influenced by Self Esteem’s critically praised soundtrack for the one-woman play. “She made such an amazing sound pack. I watched the very beginning of the NT Live performance, and I could feel my mind thinking about what she’d done,” LeCount admits. “So I waited until we were quite far into the making process to finish watching it.” Jacob adds, “I have to really take care of when I listen to music and what I listen to. But with this, I felt [watching Prima Facie] was more helpful in understanding Suzie and Justin’s shared language, and thinking about how audiences would interact with the sound in the theatre.”
Trust is the most important and fundamental element for collaboration. That doesn’t just come through working on music together, that comes through hanging out as well, and being friends.
James Jacob
Where Prima Facie had a solo protagonist and a driving electro-pop score, Inter Alia is more theatrical in form – with multiple characters, live instruments, and layered sonic environments. Still, both plays end on stand-out musical moments, and in both cases, the final song is a profound emotional release. “For most of the song it is only a cappella vocal, and then these massive synths and the subwoofer [speaker] come in,” says LeCount. “We wanted it to feel like the ground was slipping out from under you.”
The song, the only one in the play with lyrics written by LeCount and Jacob, wasn’t created until the end of their month-long writing process. “There was a piece missing,” says Jacob. What gives the song its power is not just its content, but its contrast. “There’s a lot that’s just gone on, and there’s an element of lullaby to Erin’s voice. Subtly, in the way that it’s so minimal – to audiences, it sounds like she’s in the room.”
“The vocal is so upfront and so present in a way that none of the other music is, because the final scene is going to conjure mixed responses,” LeCount explains. “We just had to create something that would… facilitate what everyone in that audience could be feeling.”
“When you get to this point, you just listen and you are still,” says Jacob. “You’re absorbing it all and letting everything settle. I’ve teared up every single time I’ve seen it in the theatre in the full run through.”
LeCount recalls a noticeable shift in the room the first time the final scene was rehearsed. It was the first time she had seen Rosamund Pike cry during the process, and there was a distinct heaviness that settled over the Lyttelton Theatre. “I think it is a combination of everything that everyone does in that last scene – Rosamund’s delivery, Miriam [Buether]’s set, Justin’s direction, Suzie’s writing,” she smiles. “The song is so special. I’m so glad we got to make that for it.”
If Miller’s first play asked us to listen harder to women’s stories, Inter Alia invites us to sit in silence and ask ourselves what justice truly sounds like – and who it’s for. LeCount and Jacob’s music doesn’t provide answers, but it lets the questions linger: loudly, quietly, honestly.
Inter Alia is playing at the Lyttelton Theatre, London until 13th September and will be broadcast live in cinemas across the UK on 4th September.
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