Joe Egg and the 'sanctity of life' -- Eddie Pedantic Gasbag Discussion Group

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Date Posted: 04:05:25 12/22/01 Sat
Author: spoot
Subject: Joe Egg and the 'sanctity of life'

I have been angrily mulling this over ever since the reviews have come out for Joe Egg, and so bear with me as I go into this really esoteric subject that maybe nobody will even find the least bit interesting.

Most of the reviews correctly criticise Eddie's performance for not showing the desperation and despair behind his antic jokes and play acting, though I think it is not Eddie but the director who is responsible for this. But the thing that chaps my hide is that all the critics praise and admire Victoria Hamilton's Sheila for being the true heroine and heart of the play, as shown in this quote "she ... bears the play's sentimental moral alone. There's absolutely no laughing at the dogged tenacity of her optimism any more than there is laughing at her selfless devotion."

Well I don't think Peter Nichols meant to have Sheila's dedication to her barely living child be the moral core of the play. I think he wrote her to be tragic, trapped and blind. I think he created Bri to illustrate the need for letting life go when it's continuance becomes unbearable.

I found exerpts of Nichol's diary from that time. Ironically, he was just receiving world recognition for the play at the same time as his daughter was dying. The important difference between Peter and Bri was this, Peter's daughter was put away into an institution, because the family needed to let go and get on with the business of raising other children and he needed to have the space to create his body of work! Anyway here are clips out of that diary that illustrate so clearly Peter Nichol's feelings on his daughter's so-called life.
--------

July 17 (1969)
After breakfast, Thelma left to catch the Bristol train. Abigail nearly died last week and her ward sister asked Thelma to visit. There'd been no detectable pulse for some time and we hourly expected to hear of her death. Uncle Frank, the male nurse, was sent to see her and reported her to be pathetically wasted. We all hoped they wouldn't strive too officiously to keep her alive. ...

...Poor Abo, our parcel of faulty goods, lives on, despite repeated promises. The doctor who delivered her has never spoken to us from that day to this. The Euthanasia Bill, which I supported, was defeated in the Lords and the Times rejoiced....

November 11
For the Bristol home of Bri and Sheila [Joe's parents] in the Egg film, Medak has chosen Freeland Place, a choice Regency location, where only TV producers can afford to live. I went to see Van Eyssen of Columbia, and said it wasn't the best time to discuss the film rights of The National Health as I was very unhappy. He at once rang and ticked them off for prettifying the film. In the morning we heard from Hortham that Abigail's worse again. She can't last much longer, they say. So shall we go down tomorrow, sit by her bed and hope she won't recover yet again? No wonder I've written two plays about sickness and my latest TV play describes a funeral. She'll soon be nine, if she makes it.....

....We've decided not to visit again until we hear the good news that she's gone. This trip at least convinced Thelma we can't have her home. She can't even bear being moved a few inches but must lie there being fed and bathed and revived by drugs and brandy (yes!) until the mechanism finally overcomes their cruel and crazy efforts to keep it working. Someone give me permission and a painless sedative and I'll kill her without a qualm......

May 8 1971
Lovely day. Tennis with [Michael] Frayn at Ranger's House, then with Louise in our garden. A friend came with his son and daughter to watch the Cup Final. Then Bristol hospital was on the line. Not another crisis? It wasn't likely, I thought, as they hadn't bothered us with false alarms for some time now.
"Hullo?"
"Are you Mister Nichols, the father of Abigail Nichols?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'm sorry to have to inform you that she passed away peacefully at half-past six this evening."......

......We sat in a dazed mood, rang our parents, decided to tell the Frayns and Woods. Thelma suggested putting a notice in the Times. I asked whatever for, as no one knew her, and then only as a disaster. Even we knew only what we'd invented, a personality based on accidental gestures and reflexes. We comforted ourselves with the thought that her state had helped us understand each other and strengthened our marriage. Deepened it even. She dies obscurely, this well-known invalid who had smiled a few times, cried a great deal, never learnt to sit up. Her death had been postponed 11 years by drugs, her fits suppressed, those outward signs of her inner chaos....

....During one of our visits to Hortham, I'd asked a nurse if it wouldn't be kinder to let her die.
"But she's a holy innocent," she replied, with a smile so sanctimonious I could have hit her....

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