The babysitter was downstairs on her third helping of apple crumble when I slipped into my parents’ bedroom and switched on their tiny black and white portable TV. On screen, although I didn’t know it at the time, was Beverly (Alison Steadman) and Angela (Janine Duvitski) in a broadcast of BBC’s Play for Today, ‘Abigail’s Party.’ Barely ten years old, I was absolutely mesmerised, and my love affair with television cemented.
Abigail Rolling
Fast forward to 1995, I qualified as a criminal defence solicitor and was thrust unsupervised onto the conveyor belt of court and cop shops. Every working day felt like being on the set of a Mike Leigh production. This subterranean world of windowless custody suites and dilapidated court rooms, being advocate to the hapless, disconsolate, and unlucky, fuelled my ambitions to portray this rich and tragic world onto our TV screens. By 2018, Channel 4 had commissioned a pilot ‘Justice’. After years of underfunding, cuts, and neglect, this comedy drama was to lift the lid on a criminal justice system now in terminal decline. It was received with enthusiasm until the commissioner left Channel 4 and the project was sadly shelved.
I threw my disappointment and frustrations into stand-up and channelled the themes into a rich blend of comedy and protest. Almost three years on, I’m performing my debut show ‘Shit Lawyer’ for the full run at Edinburgh Fringe in August. After thirty years of being chained to a radiator in my local Magistrates’ Court, it’s time to bring the plight of our justice system to people who might not normally hear the message, in a way they wouldn’t expect, through comedy.
The show is designed to be entertaining with true stories that people will find funny but there’s also plenty in there about the impact of decades of underfunding and neglect on the profession and its clients.
Courts are closing, prisons are bulging, and trials are taking years. At the rate the legal profession is losing legal aid defence lawyers, there won’t be anyone to spring you from the cop shop in the middle of the night or protect your basic legal rights at court. Along with the black rhino, green turtle, and blue whale, the ‘fat cat’ lawyer is on a trajectory to extinction. Of course, we’re not ‘fat cats’ at all, despite what the tabloids (and government) would like you to believe. Legal Aid rates haven’t increased with inflation in real terms since the Spice Girls formed.
My comedy style is misanthropic and the storytelling both hilarious and shocking, exposing the decline of a justice system once revered as the best in the world. I pull no punches in examining how governments of every hue have played their part in this demise.
‘Shit Lawyer’ is a clarion call, a manifesto for change. It’s time to show that the business of criminal law has had very little to do with justice. And who knows, maybe someone will see it and think “this would be great on television.”
Abby’s debut stand up show ‘Shit Lawyer’ will be at Just the Tonic’s Nucleus at 5.50pm for the month of August. For tickets go to www.edfringe.com