DAY IN THE DEATH OF JOE EGG: Nichols, New Ambassadors, till 24 November

A DAY IN THE DEATH OF JOE EGG: Peter Nichols
New Ambassadors Theatre: Tkts 020 7369 1761
Runs: 2h 25m, till 24 November
Review: Vera Lustig, 31 October 2001

Welcome revival of this great play, a sharp yet compassionate tragi-comedy about a couple with a severely disabled child. Its stagecraft is as fresh and bold as ever. Victoria Hamilton shines.
Over the past few weeks, bookings for comedies have surged as audiences crave relief through laughter. So here, serendipitously, comes a play which satisfies that need while commenting on it, and whose theme is a salutary reminder of unreported calamities.

Premiered in 1967, JOE EGG exposes the mulch of denial and coyness that would later nourish Political Correctness. With PC in full bloom, Joe, severely brain-damaged daughter of protagonists Sheila and Bri, would have been categorised as a 'developmentally challenged wheelchair user'. This revival unintentionally demonstrates PC in action: Nichols has expunged references to 'darkies' (it's changed to 'midgets') and 'fuzzy-wuzzies', even though they target racists, not black people. This is a nod to today's sensibilities – or should that be, over-literalness?

JOE EGG is not for the ironically or imaginatively challenged. For Nichols the medium is the message: we dissemble, hence the characters' awareness that they are performing. Faced with unpalatable reality, we need reassurance; so the couple's vapid friend Pam and Bri's garrulous, self-absorbed mother, both out of their depth (and both excellently realised by Robin Weaver and Prunella Scales respectively) confide in the audience.

Bri uses comedy routines to leaven and illuminate their tragedy. It is here, in the sketches where the couple narrate Joe's birth and diagnosis, that Clive Owens's otherwise accomplished performance flags: his bungling doctor is a feeble imitation of Harry Enfield's goofy Tim Nice-But-Dim; his trendy vicar is blurry.

Laurence Boswell's production errs on the side of pleasantness. Bri and Sheila's cheerful, Christmassy living room is a tad palatial, Joe's convulsions, her dribbling and wordless cries are discreet.

As Sheila, though, the play's emotional centre, Victoria Hamilton ratchets up the intensity. Her raw pain is tempered by hope, her beseeching love for her unresponsive child almost too painful to witness.

Director: Laurence Boswell
Designer: Es Devlin
Cast: Clive Owen, Victoria Hamilton, Catalina Blackman/ Elizabeth Holmes-Gwillim (as Joe), John Warnaby, Robin Weaver, Prunella Scales

2001-11-01 09:56:46