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A Day in the Death of Joe Egg

Trafalgar Studios

Reviewed – 3rd October 2019

★★

“This production of Joe Egg is one that refuses to truly grapple with the depths of the text, failing to deliver or connect as a result”

In the wake of Peter Nichols’ death just under a month ago, it shines a different kind of light on the somewhat autobiographical play that propelled him to fame as a writer – a poignant retrospective on the legacy he leaves behind. It’s a shame then that this production doesn’t seem to quite live up to that legacy.

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg centres on schoolteacher Bri (Toby Stephens) and his am-dram fanatic wife Sheila (Claire Skinner) in an average day of their lives coping with the strains and stresses that caring for their highly disabled daughter Joe (Storme Toolis, marking the first time in West End history a disabled actor has taken the role) impose on their relationship and psyches. It is a testament to Nichols that the subject matter of this story still feels hugely relevant today, despite the play’s premiere being over half a century ago, and the way the characters use dark humour as a coping mechanism rings very truthfully. Nichols also employs the breaking of the fourth wall to make the telling of the story more intimate, making the audience almost feel more like psychiatrists as Bri and Sheila confess their darkest and innermost feelings of guilt and perseverance.

However, the direct address is also one of Joe Egg’s shortfalls. Forgoing the famous rule of ‘show, don’t tell’, the first act is comprised mostly of Bri and Sheila jumping down from Peter McKintosh’s beautifully rendered living room set onto the bare front of the stage to explain every detail about Joe to the audience, as though they were frantically trying to justify her inclusion in the play. It’s appreciated that when Joe Egg was first produced this was probably quite a necessary feature of the script, but unfortunately here it drags, and the staging especially feels like a misstep from director Simon Evans.

The treacly pacing isn’t helped by a tonal flatline throughout almost the entire piece. Aside from some peaks and troughs in the second act thanks to the introduction of new characters, everything feels like it’s running on one level. We’re told that Bri uses humour to deflect pain and is emotionally manipulative but Stephen’s portrayal never takes us beneath the surface. We’re told that Sheila had a sultry past but we only ever see Skinner being worried for most of the runtime. And the self-awareness these characters have that they are in a play leads to a self-assuredness in everything they say, conveying the feeling nothing really matters and nothing is at stake. Which does not make for engaging theatre.

Bri’s mother Grace (Patricia Hodge) and middle class couple Freddie and Pam (Clarence Smith and Lucy Eaton respectively) provide a greater sense of emotional momentum in the second half, forcing Bri and Sheila to reckon with themselves in a far more exciting way but at that point it’s almost too little too late. This production of Joe Egg is one that refuses to truly grapple with the depths of the text, failing to deliver or connect as a result, and misses the opportunity to do justice to some of the first steps Nichols took over fifty years ago in the representation of disability in the arts, and the doors his work has since opened.

Reviewed by Ethan Doyle

Photography by Marc Brenner

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg

Trafalgar Studios until 30th November

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

Black Is The Color Of My Voice | ★★★ | February 2019

Soul Sessions | ★★★★ | February 2019

A Hundred Words For Snow | ★★★★★ | March 2019

Scary Bikers | ★★★★ | April 2019

Vincent River | ★★★★ | May 2019

Dark Sublime | ★★★ | June 2019

The Fishermen | ★★★½ | September 2019

Click here to see our most recent reviews

★★★½

“there are multiple scenes packed too tightly with action, making the plot slightly cumbersome to follow”

Jack McNamara’s The Fishermen has found success in multiple venues now: first at Home in Manchester, then at the Arcola in London; a sell-out stint at Edinburgh, and it’s back for another round in London at Trafalgar Studios.

Set in Southern Nigeria in the mid-90s, Obembe (Valentine Olukoga) returns home and is reunited with his younger brother Ben (David Alade) after eight years. Following a slightly tense first encounter, the two get to reminiscing, entertaining each other with impressions of family members and old faces from the community, and talking about old times. In doing so they unravel the incident which permanently scarred both their lives and led to Obembe’s running away.

Based on Chigozie Obioma’s Man Booker shortlisted novel by the same name, adaptor Gbolahan Obisesan has the unenviable task of condensing an entire novel in to a 75-minute play. It’s a lot to ask of a two-hander, however, and there are multiple scenes packed too tightly with action, making the plot slightly cumbersome to follow.

Alade and Olukoga do well to embody the roles of each of their family members as well as their younger selves, and for the most part it’s clear who is speaking and from when (the past or the present). The two find comic relief where they can, giving the audience an occasional reprieve from the play’s almost overwhelming intensity. But the device of looking back to times gone by, jokingly mimicking their mother and so on, doesn’t quite translate when they’re re-enacting serious family arguments or plots to murder for example – it’s not that the re-enactment doesn’t work for the plot, but rather the means by which they justify it. It might have been better if they had just performed it for the audience, rather than for each other.

The design (Amelia Jane Hankin) too is ambitious but overreaching: a curved row of metal poles imitates prison bars, and for the first ten minutes the brothers are divided by it. But thereafter, they’re walking through it, swapping places, standing side by side. It transpires that neither are in prison, rendering the bars just symbolic. Whilst I understand the gesture, the piecemeal manner by which the audience is trying to understand what happened means the bars are a red herring and quite distracting.

Both Alade and Olukoga are superb: Their familial bond is palpable as brotherly love grinds against old wounds. Whilst the novel’s nuanced tale doesn’t quite translate to such a short re-enactment, at least there’s no time to be distracted or bored, and the passion of the performances alone fully justifies The Fishermen’s adaptation.

Reviewed by Miriam Sallon

Photography by Pamela Raith

Trafalgar Studios

Reviewed – 3rd October 2019

★★

“This production of Joe Egg is one that refuses to truly grapple with the depths of the text, failing to deliver or connect as a result”

Reviewed by Ethan Doyle

Photography by Marc Brenner

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg

Trafalgar Studios until 30th November

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

Trafalgar Studios

Reviewed – 7th September

★★★½

“there are multiple scenes packed too tightly with action, making the plot slightly cumbersome to follow”

Jack McNamara’s The Fishermen has found success in multiple venues now: first at Home in Manchester, then at the Arcola in London; a sell-out stint at Edinburgh, and it’s back for another round in London at Trafalgar Studios.

Reviewed by Miriam Sallon

Photography by Pamela Raith

The Fishermen

Trafalgar Studios until 12th October

Previously reviewed at this venue: