Whenever I'm doing a jigsaw I reach a point when I have accumulated three or four pieces that, "definitely don't belong in this jigsaw." Currently, doing a thousand piece-er, I have about two hundred that "definitely don't belong in this jigsaw."
The play is all about a family, mam, hypochondriac dad, just pregnant daughter, and Nan, who spends the entire play in bed. On Saturday it ended with the assumption that Mam had been killed by the neighbour (who fancies Idris, the dad); in the original I am sure she was diagnosed with cancer, and the play ends with her going to hospital.
Early on in the play, while Idris is at the doctor's about the 'heart attack' he had the night before, it's revealed that Mam has been getting pain and has women's problems, but she hasn't been to the doctor, not wanting to make a fuss. That's the last we hear of her possible illness. So, I put it to you, why hint at problems if they're not going to come to anything?
It's a comedy with farcical aspects - misunderstandings, dropping trousers, sex-mad neighbour in her underwear - but Vickery's plays are often bitter-sweet. I have googled and tried to find out if the ending changed - just to put my mind at rest - but can't find anything about it.
5 comments:
You must write the playwright and ask!
Endings usually change in film adaptations. You can't ask the playwright as he died a few years ago.
Memory is so unpredictable, so who knows?
I am sure you are right. I went to see all of Frank Vickery plays in the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff. If I recall, in this play, Frank Vickery played the bedbound Nana! But, in the interval, when most people left the auditorium, Nana, kept getting in and out of bed, it was really funny, as only a few left in the Theatre saw what was happening, as at the Sherman, there were no curtains on the stage.
I find it frustrating when things change from one version to another.
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