BBC Radio 7, 1-2 October 2009
This two-hander, performed by Lindsay Duncan (from the original RSC stage
production) and Ciaran Hinds, proved ideal for radio. Essentially a series of verbal games centering on the theme of love,
this adaptation - directed by John Tydeman - ultimately revealed the essential worthlessness of their outlook on life. Although
equipped with considerable intelligence - so much so that their dialogue had all the cut-and-thrust of a sword-fight - they
possessed nothing underneath. They possessed what might be described as the rhetorical equivalent of the Emperor's New Clothes
- professing plenty of outward finery, but with nothing tangible to show for their efforts. Ultimately I was left wondering
why the French Revolution took so long to materialize; if the working class had to suffer the indignities of being ruled by
such empty-headed aristocrats, one wonders why they did not rebel earlier.
|