A Day in the Death of Joe Egg @ Liverpool Playhouse

Preview by Vicky Anderson | 02 Apr 2013

Oldham-born actor Ralf Little comes to the Northwest stage for the first time this month. Best known for his television roles in shows including The Royle Family and Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, the 33-year-old stars in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, opening at Liverpool Playhouse on 5 April.

Peter Nichols' 1967 play has never gone out of style, with a number of high profile revivals over the years. Little plays Bri, a school teacher struggling to cope with the demands of family life with his wife Sheila (Rebecca Johnson) and their daughter Joe (Jessica Bastick-Vines). Also among the cast is Shameless star Marjorie Yates.

Little, who was nominated for an Olivier award for his West End role in Notes in Falling Leaves in 2004, is excited about the part, and about treading the boards in his home region for the first time.

“It’s one of those amazing plays, an extraordinary piece of writing,” he says. “It’s hilarious and heart-breaking and provocative. It is about a young married couple with a severely disabled daughter, and how they try and deal with it by making jokes, or in any way that they can. They have to laugh – what else can you do? But it’s a challenge. If it’s not funny, you’ve failed, and if you’re a bit too flippantly funny, you’ve failed; you have to walk a line carefully, because it’s such a tricky subject matter.”

A co-production with the Rose Theatre, Kingston, the play is directed by that venue’s artistic director and founder of English Touring Theatre, Stephen Unwin.

Nichols, now in his eighties, visited the cast in rehearsals. He wrote the piece from an autobiographical standpoint, about a family situation to which Unwin can also relate. Little says: “Although it was written in the 60s, it doesn’t feel dated. Anything in there that is provocative is not because society’s moved on and it’s 2013, it’s because it was meant to be when Peter wrote it.”

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Liverpool Playhouse, 5-27 Apr, £12-£23
See website for more details

http://everymanplayhouse.com