Glitch: The True Story of the Post Office Scandal Powerful response to a national disgrace

The success of the ITV miniseries Mr Bates vs The Post Office in raising public awareness, and anger, about the Post Office/ Horizon IT scandal – in which hundreds of sub-postmasters were persecuted and prosecuted for actions that flowed from systemic computer failures - was a reminder of the power of TV drama. It highlighted, too, the curious sluggishness of our major theatres, which have thus far ignored a national disgrace.

Given the lasting damage done, that the public inquiry is ongoing, and a criminal inquiry is in motion, there remains scope for the stage to be the locus for trenchant concern. And there has already been a laudable response at a grassroots level: False Accounts, a dark comedy, toured in 2022, while Make Good: The Post Office Scandal, a musical, will tour in the autumn.

In the interim comes Glitch, a valuable contribution by the enterprising Reading-based company Rabble. Though the aim is to take it on the road too, the play (by Zannah Kearns, with dramaturgy by Beth Flintoff) is premiering at the University of Reading, a short drive from its primary setting: the Berkshire village of Barkham. Here, Pam Stubbs, a widow, went through a Kafka-esque nightmare as she grappled with technology that wasn’t up to the task, and an organisation in denial.

Her book-keeping would serve as key evidence that the Horizon system created phantom deficits (she was alleged to be some £28,000 in the red). Those who watched the TV drama (in which she was played by Lesley Nicol) may recognise some of the indignant replies she gave in court during the successful legal action launched on behalf of 555 claimants by the recently knighted Alan Bates (very briefly incarnated by Fayez Bakhsh).

Kearns has used a welter of material, including court transcripts, to give a sense of the unfolding saga, also including testimonies evoking the horrendous experiences of Tracy Felstead, who ended up in prison and Martin Griffiths, who was driven to suicide by the impossible pressures. With so much in the public domain (Nick Wallis’s invaluable best-seller included), what the piece provides most crucially is the chance to bear witness to the pitiful hounding of an ordinary, diligent pillar of the community at close quarters. Stubbs’ innocuous communal hub becomes a species of dementing prison; she’s repeatedly told that she is alone in facing issues.

Elizabeth Elvin’s Pam is initially warm and gossipy but mountingly fretful. Gemma Colclough and Gareth Taylor’s co-directed production uses frantic typing sounds, buzzing noises and associated lighting flickers to stoke a sense of glitchy palpitation. “I need a technician – how many ways can I say this?” she pleads, noting the irony that Fujitsu, the system’s software engineers, are nearby in Bracknell. When the auditors finally come down on her like a ton of bricks, she is first distressed then determined, refusing to go quietly: an everywoman who discovers her fighting-spirit.

Until July 6. Tickets: rabbletheatre.com