Having generated some controversy before its opening, and despite being explicit about which perspective the script endorses, TERF attempts to understand the trans-exclusionary author at the heart of this production. As a stentorian voice reminds the audience, the play’s events are fictional, and the imagined version of JK Rowling is depicted in terms that try to explain, if never excuse, her vigorous social-media campaign against trans identity.

The central scenes concern a meeting between Rowling and the Harry Potter stars who act as a chorus of disapproval to her opinions: interludes highlight moments of the fictionalised author’s biography, suggesting why her social proclamations might be rooted in her own negative experiences. The tension between the personal and political is bluntly exposed, and a line is drawn from her experience of abuse at male hands to her public rejection of transwomen’s rights. Yet in the final scene, the violent consequences of her tweets are revealed and condemned.

Running long at a lumbering pace, TERF suffers from an unimaginative direction, one-note characterisations and a script that inelegantly works in the key talking points. It flounders not on the controversy but on a lack of theatrical ambition. 

TERF, Assembly Rooms, until 25 August, 3.35pm.