A Day in the Death of Joe Egg

There's a telling exchange in Peter Nichols's diaries in which Trevor Nunn, then director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, tells the author: "Joe Egg – what a play, why didn't you show it to us first?" To which Nichols replies: "I did. You didn't even send a reply." More than 40 years on you wonder, if the play were sent out today, whether Joe Egg would still seem too much of a hot potato for most producers, given that jokes about invalids can still provoke furious headlines and the ethical debate about euthanasia has not moved on much from the 1960s. Today, the barely cognisant Joe Egg would be classified as having severe learning difficulties, while her harassed father works in an unruly Bristol comprehensive where he experiences extreme teaching difficulties. His opening command that everyone settle down and put their hands on their heads comes so unexpectedly that one or two members of the audience comply. Shock tactics are characteristic of a play that smashes through the fourth wall and the boundaries of good taste. Yet, the illicit skits and parodic role-play engaged in by Joe's parents suggest a couple so ensnared in an elaborate self-defence mechanism, they've forgotten the code that might let them out. Amy Robbins's Sheila is a picture of desperate fortitude, while nothing is off limits for the mockery of Mark Benton's ebulliently infantile Brian.