Frances Poet has form when it comes to dramatising illness. Her play Fibres (2019) was about a shipyard worker and his wife living with asbestosis. The cast of ailing characters in Still (2021) included a woman with chronic pain. Maggie May, delayed from 2020 because of the pandemic, is about dementia.
The writer plays a trick on us when it looks certain her focus will be on Tony Timberlake’s Gordon. He is the one snoring – well, snorting – in the bed after a blockage has caused a stroke. We assume he is in a bad way. Turns out he is fine. Timberlake plays him as genial and loving. He is as patient and forgiving as he is quick to burst into song.
