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.

[Alfred Hickling]

A young couple - Bri's a failing teacher; Sheila's involved in am dram - have a daughter,
Josephine aka Joe, who's severely handicapped with cerebral palsy. This is an autobiographical
work by Peter Nichols and it's a fine one.

But not only is it a good play. It's well served by the sort of excellent production we've come
to expect from director Matt Aston, with splendid acting all round, an outstanding set and
credible background sound.

The only problem - but it's a big one - is that the play might be dated. Its message, thankfully,
no longer needs saying with the same urgency as it needed saying back in 1967. It's difficult
to be categorical here but it might just be that the point has already gone home.

It's an interesting narrative technique. Over a few eventful hours at Christmas time the characters
step out of the main action to use the audience as a sounding board and to re-enact scenes from
their past. The play examines attitudes to, and the nature of, disability, questions surrounding
euthanasia and the whole area of sick language and humour.

There are good performances from the two leads, Mark Benton and Amy Robbins, particularly
the latter. She's dark, practical and strong; he's all scruffy hair, elbow pads, tweeds and corduroys.

Tim Dantay, last seen in Nottingham as D H Lawrence in Empty Bed Blues, is excellent as Freddie,
with a speech impediment. As Joe, Finn Atkins is completely realistic.

It happens on a skewed and cluttered, sixties living room set with an even more skewed skylight
above - all is not right. And we're given a solidly sixties sound in the background.

It seems a curious error of taste as well as internal logic to have Joe announcing the interval,
but it's an unusual evening's theatre at various levels.

[Alan Geary]

Left Lion

Peter Nichols' play depicts a couple caring for their severely disabled daughter, Josephine. The guilt
and sadness they feel about Joe's condition and the difficulty of caring for her place a heavy burden
on their marriage. We learn of the variety of reactions to Joe from friends and professionals ranging
from incompetence and badly conceived advice through to indifference and repulsion.

In order to cope they invent wacky personalities for her and imagine her having a glittering future
ahead of her. Sheila tries to make the most of things and to have a life outside the home. Brian has a
very dark sense of humour which he uses to taunt and bully his wife, mostly for his own amusement.
His feelings about Joe are conflicted. On the one hand, he is very caring and solicitous of her
well-being but also he resents the fact that his life and marriage have been ruined and wishes
to place Joe into a home. He also fantasises about killing her and it is ambiguous whether this
is for her sake or for his.

Playing Joe aged ten is the impish Finn Atkins (unbelievably, 20 years old), whom you might
remember from Shane Meadows' film Once Upon a Time in the Midlands. Staging a play where
an adult plays a disabled child and jokes about the tragic situation is fraught with pitfalls and
offers an uncomfortable experience for the audience but luckily Matt Aston, who has had so
many directorial successes at the Lakeside Arts Centre, has done excellent job.

Nichols wrote several comic plays which, like this one, are about serious subjects. He is writing
from experience as his own first child was born with brain damage and died aged ten. Although
created in the 1960s, the black comedy in this play is still quite edgy. Brian's cruel sense of
humour and mind games are performed excellently by Mark Benton, a comic actor best known
for playing Howard in Northern Lights. Another Nichols trait is the way the characters step out
of the scene to talk directly to the audience, driving a truck through the suspension of disbelief
that is normally expected of an audience. This can be quite jarring but here it allows the
characters to speak their minds and keeps the audience's attention focused on the issues.

Personally, I've been a fan of Peter Nichols since I saw a production of Poppy, a pantomime
about the Opium Wars, at the Lace Market many years ago. It is great to see his work being
performed and for this play, which is still relevant more than forty years on, to be revived.

[Adrian Baghat]