Frank Horsley

From the moment David Creedon stepped on stage and addressed the audience like a class of naughty schoolchildren, it was clear we were in for another compelling evening's entertainment from Wick Theatre Company.

Right from the start, Wick gripped one's attention with A Day in the Death of Joe Egg by Peter Nichols - staged at the Barn Theatre, Southwick, last week.  This unusual comedy about two parents' different ways of adjusting to their 10-year-old spastic child was tailor-made for Wick's mind-broadening style. Coping with such a sensitive subject, there was a danger of turning the play into one long, sick joke, but director George Porter and his experienced cast steered well clear of such a pitfall.

I had never seen David Creedon act before but was immediately impressed by his portrayal of Joe's father, Bri.  He came across exactly right as a man, who in his own words, "could not sustain a passion to the end of a sentence".  He wanted to be compassionate towards his spastic daughter, but could only live with her afflictions by playfully acting out episodes from her past life - a sort of escape from reality.  His rather unwilling partner in these charades was his wife Sheila whom Margaret Ockenden brought to life with great skill, although occasionally forgetting her lines on the first night.

I thought Tim Cara highly amusing as the loud-spoken friend of the family, Freddie, who wanted to help Sheila and Bri's marriage, but was a little less than useless.   And ruthlessly leaving bare another attitude towards the crippled child was Valerie Burt as Freddie's wife Pam.  Her reaction in life was to shudder away from anything less than perfect.

Frances Moulton was perhaps a bit too much of a stereotype as Bri's molly-coddling mother, Grace, but raised many laughs just the same, and young Katie Donkin did all that was expected of her in the title role.

Brighton & Hove Gazette

Lester Middlehurst

It is hard to believe anybody could write a comedy about such a depressing subject as a mentally-retarded spastic child.  The Wick Theatre company made it even harder in their production at the Barn, Southwick, of Peter Nicolls' play A day in the Death of Joe Egg .  They failed to capture the humour which abounds in the play.  Nicolls has written a moving play about a spastic girl.  Her parents spend most of their lives play-acting to fight off the despair of not having a normal child.  They give Joe Egg, as they call her, different personalities and act the tragic circumstances off her handicap with humour.  But George Porter's direction was slow and unsympathetic.

Actors David Creedon and Margaret Ockenden, as the parents, killed Nicolls' witty dialogue and left me feeling acutely embarrassed instead of entertained.  And having ruined the genuine humour of the first act they turn the dramatic climax into a French farce.  The point where the father cracks up and tries to kill Joe by exposing her to the elements outside was a disaster.  Characters rushed rushed in and out of doors like a scene from a Whitehall farce and the tragedy and urgency of the drama was smothered in belly-laughs.

Tim Cara and Valerie Burt brought a touch of light relief in the second act as the friends who try to help Bri and Sheila cope with their frustration.  Apart from his hideous pancake make-up, Mr Cara was particularly convincing as the loud, blustering Freddie, trying to do good but only succeeding in getting up everyone's noses.  Miss Burt was suitably snobbish as the wife, reluctantly forced into forgetting about herself for a moment and sparing a thought for others.  Frances Moulton turned in a cameo performance as Bri's  hen-pecking mother, not pausing to take breath once even when talking to herself.

But these cameos were not enough to save a production from being a second-rate attempt at performing a first-rate play.