This is one of those plays that, unless it's explained beforehand, one doesn't realise it is intended as comedy until a few minutes in. The court case depicted seems at first to involve a thoroughly corrupt, evil doctor who has cold bloodedly had a patient's healthy legs amputated as he supposedly wished it. He died of shock hours later, and then forced a colleague into a compromising situation to cover it up. Then we hear more about the patient's desire for the amputations, and I thought this may turn into an examination of the bizarre psychological dementia known as apotemnophilia, where the patient indeed does want limbs cut away. But soon it dawned on me, slow that I am, that the characters, that came to testify as well as the judge, are dim or exaggerated comedy types that have silly mannerisms and unintentionally funny things to say, even as the story grows ever more sinister. It comes out that the doctor is part of a conspiracy to make unknowing customers of a clothing shop into willing amputees, and has been a success with hundreds of now-satisfied victims.
This sort of gruesome black humour is the sort of product that comes from uninhibited contempt that elite actors and writers have for their audience in Britain. Needless controversy for it's own sake. That it slanders the medical profession held up it's transmission for two years, but it should have just been "wiped" instead.
This sort of gruesome black humour is the sort of product that comes from uninhibited contempt that elite actors and writers have for their audience in Britain. Needless controversy for it's own sake. That it slanders the medical profession held up it's transmission for two years, but it should have just been "wiped" instead.
