The play is set in Cape Town where Albie Sachs, a young white barrister who defended many black opponents of apartheid, was arrested in 1963 and held in solitary confinement under the infamus 90-Day Law which allowed the police to hold suspects for an indefinite period. The play tells of his bid to hold out against his interrogators who wished to break down and obtain information about his friends and clients in the South African resistance.
David Edgar's adaptation of Sach's play The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs was first presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Warehouse Theatre, London, in 1978.