In the back of the van

By TOBY LICHTIG

Attending any of the longer theatrical performances at this year's Latitude Festival was nigh on impossible given the accompaniment of a tiny child, but I did manage to catch one excellent and crucially (for my purposes) short piece of theatre, which has stayed with me ever since.

Sweat Box by Chlo�� Moss (directed by Imogen Ashby) takes places in a prison van. (The van, I was told, was requisitioned off some dodgy geezer who does a nice line in them: apparently they make good horse boxes.) There's space for around twelve audience members in the back of the vehicle, pushed up against three tiny locked cells. (We were allowed to inspect the cells afterwards: no seatbelts, barely room to move.) In each cell sits a woman, waiting to be transported to prison. The van has stopped for unknown reasons. The women aren't told what's happening, adding to their sense of frustration . . . .

Over twelve intense minutes, we're treated to the prisoners' repartee, as they reassure and rile one another, and comment on the spectacle of the prison guards, who appear to be standing around outside, flirting and eating sandwiches. One woman is a newbie; she has a toddler at home; she didn't realize she was going be put away earlier that morning and didn't get the chance to say goodbye. Another is a cheerfully cynical old timer. "What's prison like?" the newbie asks. "Butlins", is the reply. The third is pregnant ��� and angry. Only after she emerges, handcuffed, like the rest of them, do we realize how late-term she is. Desperate for the toilet, she has been forced to relieve herself in the little cell. "Lovely", says the disgusted officer, leading her away. The banter between the women is funny, troubling and above all very human ��� the reaction of the officer is, by contrast, degrading.

Clean Break is a theatre charity dedicated to highlighting the difficulties faced by women caught up in the criminal justice system. Sweat Box shows how easy it is to dehumanize those who have had their freedoms removed, for whatever reason, and how it is the little ��� and entirely avoidable ��� humiliations that can be the most corrosive. At a time when Michael Gove is planning to overhaul the criminal justice system, it casts salient light on that tired old debate about rehabilitation vs retribution.