Radio Times

Review by:

Stuart Manning

In the near future, composer Jerome has become a recluse as he attempts to decipher the meaning of love through song. But when an escort arrives from an agency, so begins a plan to reconnect him with the life he has left behind.

Alan Ayckbourn’s dystopian farce combines estranged parents, a Stepford-Wife robot and teen angst with gusto, but somehow is never as much fun as it should be. Joanne Whalley and Jared Harris’s embittered spouses feel like castaways from the real world, and in the pauses between their acid put-downs one senses a yearning for happier times.

Harris is in his element as Jerome, who has selfishly rejected everything in pursuit of art, injecting the hubris with breezy affability. Siege mentality has rarely seemed quite so sublime.

About this programme

Henceforward, by Alan Ayckbourn. Martin Jarvis directs this darkly prophetic comedy set sometime in the near future, about a composer whose only company is his music, the ultra-modern recording devices that surround him, and a malfunctioning humanoid robot called NAN 300F. Jared Harris (Jerome), Joanne Whalley (Corinna), Simon Templeman (Lupus), Sophie Winkleman (Zoe), Rosa Calcraft (Geain, aged 9), Darren Richardson (Mervyn), Moira Quirk (Geain, aged 13), Daisy Hydon (Mrs Hope-Fitch), Matthew Wolf (Technician).

Cast and crew

Crew

Director

Martin Jarvis

Producer

Rosalind Ayres

Writer

Alan Ayckbourn

Share this episode