Nor is there much passion or provocation in this fastidiously even-handed work. The final kicker? We are denied the visual punchline of any helium-filled Disney princesses rising over the vicarage. Instead of conveying any inner turmoil, the play coasts by on sub-Alan Bennett humour (insulted in Londis, David hopes there’s a Waitrose in heaven) and the odd eye-roll at wokeness. Having erred in his boozing and infidelity, he might plausibly have picked the wrong hill to die on in a bid to prove himself worthy of God. What a difference it would have made if David’s bloody-mindedness were informed by some yearning for redemption.
Standing firm against a bereft mother (Sarah Twomey) beggars belief. Jennings is delightfully witty and urbane but that’s part of the problem: the way Beresford has written David, it is impossible to believe that someone so equitable would be intransigent in the face of grief.
It’s a question that comes to undermine the play’s scattershot second act. Looking on aghast … Jack Greenlees, Phoebe Nicholls and Jennings.
