She not only has Sheila's sexiness, optimism and blind faith in remedial possibilities: she also plays off Izzard's Bri perfectly so that their games become like practised marital rituals which erupt into a wild giggling spontaneity. Prunella Scales as Bri's smothering mother offers a lethally funny picture of the dangers of a closed mind protectiveness.īut, on a second viewing, it is clear that Victoria Hamilton's Sheila is the rock on which Laurence Boswell's production is built. Robin Weaver as Freddie's squeamish wife is a chilling portrait of nuclear family selfishness. John Warnaby's wonderfully bullish, do-gooding friend, Freddie, demonstrates the fallibility of liberal sympathy. In fact, he widens the debate to show the helpless alternatives to Bri's despairing jokiness and attempted euthanasia. But that scarcely matters because by then Nichols has passed the dramatic baton to other hands. Izzard is slightly less potent in the second half when Bri is spurred into drastic action to end the situation. Izzard's Bri, exactly as Nicholas intended, is a man who has become trapped in his self-delighting defence mechanisms. Even better is his effete, empathising vicar who launches into a lunging, loony tap-dance to demonstrate the possibility of miracles. His German-accented paediatrician is a music hall scientist carrying on an imaginary colloquy with a colleague in the wings. And he brings to the role-playing he shares with Victoria Hamilton's Sheila the instincts of a natural clown. ![]() From his first appearance, with embryonic blond beard and striped trousers like some academic misfit, he makes us laugh.
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