Synopsis

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg is a biting dark comedy that has lost none of its teeth in the intervening years since taking the stage in the tumultuous 1960s. It portrays two parents, Bri and Sheila, whose only child is wheelchair-bound and non-communicative, having been born with cerebral palsy. The two of them struggle to keep their family together in a world peopled with shallow social connections, pretentious and self-martyring care-givers – a society never designed to accommodate or even understand extraordinary circumstances. Their saving grace is the humor they share, with which they navigate the stumbling blocks placed in their path by outsiders as well as by their own psyches, a path that leads through the depths of doubt and the heights of commitment.

The production history of Peter Nichols’ A Day in the Death of Joe Egg testifies to its enduring power. Premiering in Glasgow in 1967, the production moved to London the same year. From London it went to Broadway, bringing along its star, Albert Finney, and was adapted for a 1972 film starring Alan Bates and directed by Peter Medak. It made the National Theatre’s list of the 100 most significant plays of the 20^th Century. It’s been remounted numerous times, in London, Glasgow, and on and off Broadway, along the way to its recent revival in London’s West End in 2019.

Read the Director’s Note