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A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
'This remarkable play is about a nightmare all women must have dreamed at some time, and most men...'
Ronald Bryden, Observer (1967)
'Joe Egg is unlike any play I've seen; concerns about whether it's dated fade next to the claims that can now be made for it. It's in the collisions between pious and rogue thoughts that the play's energy lies. We don't know what to feel. Which is why, once seen, Joe Egg won't go away.'
Robert Butler, Independent on Sunday (1993)
Ronald Bryden, Observer (1967)
'Joe Egg is unlike any play I've seen; concerns about whether it's dated fade next to the claims that can now be made for it. It's in the collisions between pious and rogue thoughts that the play's energy lies. We don't know what to feel. Which is why, once seen, Joe Egg won't go away.'
Robert Butler, Independent on Sunday (1993)
87 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
8 people are currently reading
151 people want to read
About the author
Peter Nichols
103 books65 followersNOT alias for John Christopher
Peter Nichols was an English playwright, screenwriter, and journalist known for his sharp wit and incisive social commentary. His most celebrated works, including A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, The National Health, and Privates on Parade, blend comedy with profound explorations of human struggles, often drawing from his own life experiences.
Born in Bristol, Nichols served in the British Army’s Combined Services Entertainment Unit before studying acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He initially gained recognition writing for television before transitioning to the stage, where his plays tackled themes such as illness, war, and personal betrayal, frequently using humor as a counterpoint to tragedy. His distinctive voice made him one of Britain’s most autobiographical playwrights, chronicling his experiences in his memoir Feeling You're Behind and his published diaries.
Over his career, Nichols received critical acclaim and numerous awards, culminating in his appointment as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2018 for services to drama. His legacy endures through his sharp, compassionate, and deeply human storytelling.
Peter Nichols was an English playwright, screenwriter, and journalist known for his sharp wit and incisive social commentary. His most celebrated works, including A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, The National Health, and Privates on Parade, blend comedy with profound explorations of human struggles, often drawing from his own life experiences.
Born in Bristol, Nichols served in the British Army’s Combined Services Entertainment Unit before studying acting at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He initially gained recognition writing for television before transitioning to the stage, where his plays tackled themes such as illness, war, and personal betrayal, frequently using humor as a counterpoint to tragedy. His distinctive voice made him one of Britain’s most autobiographical playwrights, chronicling his experiences in his memoir Feeling You're Behind and his published diaries.
Over his career, Nichols received critical acclaim and numerous awards, culminating in his appointment as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2018 for services to drama. His legacy endures through his sharp, compassionate, and deeply human storytelling.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
October 11, 2023
One of saddest plays I have ever read. The ending left my heart bleeding for Sheila, yet I could not outright accuse Bri. I get it. In the last analysis, though, Sheila is an incredibly more humane and moral character than Bri, who wants nothing more than to get on with his life, minus the baby.
SAD, SAD, SAD.
SAD, SAD, SAD.
February 24, 2013
I suspect much of this play's reputation lies in its impact at the time. Avant garde theatre in the 60s was obsessed with telling us how bloody awful life was, as well as kicking against the pricks of the "well-made play". Joe Egg ticks all the boxes, but what was radical and exciting then simply isn't now. Characters speaking directly to the audience doesn't seem as radical as it did then, and it's been done much better since.
We get the mother and father, with their near-vegetative daughter, and the friends who come round to try to open their eyes to a better life, plus the mother-in-law. The mother has made her life into a saintly self-sacrifice for her daughter, while the father seethes with frustration at a life so tightly bound by this impossible situation, bouncing between parenthood and the teaching job he hates. Both parents have turned caring for their daughter into a near-fetish, and they are unwilling or unable to break free.
Much of the humour comes from the shock at hearing any jokes at all; again, this impact has softened with time.
We get the mother and father, with their near-vegetative daughter, and the friends who come round to try to open their eyes to a better life, plus the mother-in-law. The mother has made her life into a saintly self-sacrifice for her daughter, while the father seethes with frustration at a life so tightly bound by this impossible situation, bouncing between parenthood and the teaching job he hates. Both parents have turned caring for their daughter into a near-fetish, and they are unwilling or unable to break free.
Much of the humour comes from the shock at hearing any jokes at all; again, this impact has softened with time.
October 2, 2013
3.5 stars.
Very much 'of its time', a kitchen sink slice-of-life in a working class household. This one however holds a ten year old girl who is a 'vegetable' unable to walk, talk, or feed herself.
It's very depressing, and sad. It reminded me of A Taste of Honey, which I also found very bleak and hard to like.
There's no wit or dark humour, it's just dark. I hated the constant references to Joe's (the girl's) mum's regular sleeping around before Joe was born, it just kept coming up.
I wouldn't want to see this on the stage, it's just not my cup of tea. It's a good example of thinking of the time though - how disabled children might have been treated by the medical world and by people around them. But it's no fun to watch or read.
Very much 'of its time', a kitchen sink slice-of-life in a working class household. This one however holds a ten year old girl who is a 'vegetable' unable to walk, talk, or feed herself.
It's very depressing, and sad. It reminded me of A Taste of Honey, which I also found very bleak and hard to like.
There's no wit or dark humour, it's just dark. I hated the constant references to Joe's (the girl's) mum's regular sleeping around before Joe was born, it just kept coming up.
I wouldn't want to see this on the stage, it's just not my cup of tea. It's a good example of thinking of the time though - how disabled children might have been treated by the medical world and by people around them. But it's no fun to watch or read.
August 31, 2021
Although it had a slow start, this play was so shocking!! The twists I did not see coming and I’m truly dumbfounded… WOAH
However, I know it was written in the times when language like what they were using to describe their disabled daughter was not uncommon, it still did not sit right with me and I feel that some of the breaking of the fourth wall was a bit too much.
However, I know it was written in the times when language like what they were using to describe their disabled daughter was not uncommon, it still did not sit right with me and I feel that some of the breaking of the fourth wall was a bit too much.
January 14, 2019
Very sad play. Perhaps too much breaking of the fourth wall to supply exposition, but it's certainly the author's prerogative. There's a part in Act 2 that reminds me of GOD OF CARNAGE, when the characters stop being polite and start telling the brutal truth. I did like that section.
August 5, 2020
Amazing
January 1, 2016
One of the oddest plays I have ever read... mainly because some of what the characters say is way too long or feels way too long, considering that it is not a novel. However, there was some good use of symbolism, particularly in the character of the mother/wife figure who represented hope. And the writing mainly was what made this play stand out to me. The story is nothing exceptional, in fact it is quite Pinter-esque and hence disturbing or nonsensical at times, but the writing is poignant beyond everything. The way Nichol's writes is like Schubert in music - he breaks our hearts with the good news, not the bad. I read in one sitting, as I aim to with plays, and though it dragged quite a lot at times I still felt that I could not put it down. The stillness made the anticipation and suspense, knowing with a title like that that something is going to happen. I recommend this to anyone who is an avid play enthusiast and who enjoys satire or slapstick comedy, or to anyone who enjoyed Twelfth night by Shakespeare or the Birthday Party by Pinter.
March 9, 2017
This is such a fantastically written play, but I find the storyline heart wrenching!
April 6, 2023
A DAY IN THE DEATH OF JOE EGG is not for the squeamish. The very words will scratch your eyes out. Peter Nichols transformed his own experience in raising an autistic child into a masterpiece that played both at the West End of London and Broadway. A British couple is cursed, not blessed or burdened in their eyes, with a girl child that has no mind, feelings and is 99.99% vegetative, with no hope for recovery, except escape by death. The crux of the play is how a the couple deal with a situation beyond human endurance and explanation. Savage black humor is one way, at the child's expense, of course. (No, I will not repeat the jokes here.) How about marriage? The wife is tasked with keeping her husband from either abandoning the child to the care of others---doctors, mental institutions, relatives; anything or anybody but this---or leaving their house once and for all, alone. This she does by tricks, whether promising him sex (which she no longer enjoys but he craves more than ever in this spot), and joining in on his sick humor about the girl. Can religion bring illumination or comfort? After the vicar tells the husband the child's state is "part of God's plan", he replies, "then God must be a manic depressive rugby player". (This lunacy is on the part of His Reverence is not fiction. I once heard the late British apologist for Christianity Malcolm Muggeridge say on national television " a six year old girl with leukemia is part of God's plan".) This play is never dated since its problems are universal. You could substitute another tragedy for autism. Incidentally, I once knew a couple who took their vegetative child off life-support and on a cold, windy October day a group of us helped carry his casket to the burial ground; an experience both heartbreaking and strangely moving. Should you wish to see JOE EGG staged I suggest the film adaptation of the same name, starring that genius of British stage and cinema, Alan Bates. Chilling.
February 24, 2025
Classic play from Peter Nichols, a dark, difficult blend of humor and tragedy. I think people don't respond to it as well any more. Not because it's dated per se, or because it has terminology that is no longer current. But because it presents a morally tangled mess of people with compassion, from the inside, that eschews a neat binary. A lot to think about, a bit to laugh about, even if it's only to cope.
November 8, 2019
Like every good comedy, this is tragic and devastating. I remember this play from when Eddie Izzard was in it, but never got to see the show - I can see him playing with the character of Bri with an energy and zaniness overlaying his very difficult life. It wouldn’t be a cheery night out but I’d still look out for it.
July 5, 2024
What a provocative play! The casting of Eddie Izzard in a revival just makes too much sense. I wish I could have seen that production.
I think this would be interesting to compare with "The Glass Menagerie."
I think this would be interesting to compare with "The Glass Menagerie."
June 15, 2018
Had to read this for school - did not see that ending coming
February 9, 2022
Strange strange play. I saw a revival with Eddie Izzard and I remember enjoying it.
It was not very fun to read.
It was not very fun to read.
May 30, 2024
Drama A Level
June 6, 2024
Devastating play that generally made me feel sad. Bit outdated and the whole speaking to the audience thing has been done better.
August 4, 2014
I heard about Joe Egg from a reader of one of my blog posts, quickly located a copy, and am now a little surprised to have spent so many years at the intersection of literature and developmental disability without having been aware of it.
In terms of drama, the play feels rather original. There was a period in the 70s and early 80s when I studied (and even acted in) sometimes-experimental plays, and this one could easily have fit in there with Pinter and the rest. What I found particularly startling was the way characters seem to be soliloquizing but then it turns out they are consciously addressing the audience -- helpfully filling us in on the back story or their private thoughts, even though as they say we're just a bunch of strangers looking into their home. This devolves into something bordering on low comedy when one character utters a bad word and another glances at the audience and says, "I hate plays that use language."
There is also a kind of rough, forced gaiety on the part of Bri (Brian) and Sheila, the parents in this story. Their antics might bring forth a smile or two, early on, but this is grim stuff. It is no comedy, despite the notes on the back cover. I suspect sitting through a performance would involve some pain.
Joe (Josephine) is a horrifically disabled child, strapped into a wheelchair and subject to seizures when the adults prove too incompetent to give her medicine. Bri and Sheila seem to think they are maintaining a jolly home environment for her, but when not speaking to her directly they squabble and avoid doing anything to address her actual needs (ranging from a sodden diaper at the beginning to the possibility near the end that she may have stopped breathing).
A critic might see comedy in this, but I have personal experience and can report that it's literally as serious as cancer. (Yes I understand that comedy often deals with serious topics. Does that mean someone should write a comedy about the Final Solution? Never mind; maybe someone has.) Fortunately, my own Joe (Joseph) was not subject to seizures or confined to a wheelchair, but even so years of frustration and anxiety over his condition led to terminal cancer for my wife. First, however, in pursuing help for him, she and I met a great many families with kids just like the one in this play. We were all highly motivated to give our kids more options in life, an outcome that (unlike the people in this story) we believed was possible. We'd found one another through an alternative organization that had been created at a time when the response depicted here was pretty much SOP.
Lest anyone get too self-congratulatory about ours being a less benighted era, I recognized bits like the notes sent home from Joe's "school." This scenario is still being enacted in a home near you.
I did not find Joe Egg to be a pleasant experience. But it provides worthwhile insights, such as this one from Sheila:
… he said I needed to get out more, have a rest from Joe. But she's no trouble. It's Brian. I don't know which is the greatest baby. Watching somebody as limited as Joe over ten years, I've begun to feel she's only one kind of cripple. Everybody's damaged in some way. There's a limit to what we can do. Brian, for instance, he goes so far -- and hits the ceiling. Just can't fly any higher. Then he drops to the floor and we get self-pity again.
And no doubt there'd be chills in a live performance when Joe briefly appears upstage as a normal child, skipping rope.
In terms of drama, the play feels rather original. There was a period in the 70s and early 80s when I studied (and even acted in) sometimes-experimental plays, and this one could easily have fit in there with Pinter and the rest. What I found particularly startling was the way characters seem to be soliloquizing but then it turns out they are consciously addressing the audience -- helpfully filling us in on the back story or their private thoughts, even though as they say we're just a bunch of strangers looking into their home. This devolves into something bordering on low comedy when one character utters a bad word and another glances at the audience and says, "I hate plays that use language."
There is also a kind of rough, forced gaiety on the part of Bri (Brian) and Sheila, the parents in this story. Their antics might bring forth a smile or two, early on, but this is grim stuff. It is no comedy, despite the notes on the back cover. I suspect sitting through a performance would involve some pain.
Joe (Josephine) is a horrifically disabled child, strapped into a wheelchair and subject to seizures when the adults prove too incompetent to give her medicine. Bri and Sheila seem to think they are maintaining a jolly home environment for her, but when not speaking to her directly they squabble and avoid doing anything to address her actual needs (ranging from a sodden diaper at the beginning to the possibility near the end that she may have stopped breathing).
A critic might see comedy in this, but I have personal experience and can report that it's literally as serious as cancer. (Yes I understand that comedy often deals with serious topics. Does that mean someone should write a comedy about the Final Solution? Never mind; maybe someone has.) Fortunately, my own Joe (Joseph) was not subject to seizures or confined to a wheelchair, but even so years of frustration and anxiety over his condition led to terminal cancer for my wife. First, however, in pursuing help for him, she and I met a great many families with kids just like the one in this play. We were all highly motivated to give our kids more options in life, an outcome that (unlike the people in this story) we believed was possible. We'd found one another through an alternative organization that had been created at a time when the response depicted here was pretty much SOP.
Lest anyone get too self-congratulatory about ours being a less benighted era, I recognized bits like the notes sent home from Joe's "school." This scenario is still being enacted in a home near you.
I did not find Joe Egg to be a pleasant experience. But it provides worthwhile insights, such as this one from Sheila:
… he said I needed to get out more, have a rest from Joe. But she's no trouble. It's Brian. I don't know which is the greatest baby. Watching somebody as limited as Joe over ten years, I've begun to feel she's only one kind of cripple. Everybody's damaged in some way. There's a limit to what we can do. Brian, for instance, he goes so far -- and hits the ceiling. Just can't fly any higher. Then he drops to the floor and we get self-pity again.
And no doubt there'd be chills in a live performance when Joe briefly appears upstage as a normal child, skipping rope.
February 12, 2013
Taken from my Amazon review:
Moving, insightful, and provocative - these are some of the most important qualities a modern play can have, and Nichols nails all three in "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg." I originally read "Joe Egg" for a class I strongly disliked, but the play stuck with me until I read it again with a fresh and open mind, which is a small miracle in itself. Without spoiling too much, Nichols sets up questions that ought to have easy answers, but by playing on the audience's sympathy makes them realize that there are no easy answers for such a difficult topic.
Not everything is pitch perfect - the character of Sheila in particular can at times come off-key - but the overall effect is both personal and sublime. It is astounding and brilliant and unsettling in all the right ways.
Moving, insightful, and provocative - these are some of the most important qualities a modern play can have, and Nichols nails all three in "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg." I originally read "Joe Egg" for a class I strongly disliked, but the play stuck with me until I read it again with a fresh and open mind, which is a small miracle in itself. Without spoiling too much, Nichols sets up questions that ought to have easy answers, but by playing on the audience's sympathy makes them realize that there are no easy answers for such a difficult topic.
Not everything is pitch perfect - the character of Sheila in particular can at times come off-key - but the overall effect is both personal and sublime. It is astounding and brilliant and unsettling in all the right ways.
January 27, 2013
A difficult piece of work, as it covered many prejudices and challenges of the age in which it was written, and also those of having a disabled child. The characters were standard-- nothing too endearing about any of them. The addresses to the audience, effectively letting them know that they are watching a play were jarring. I don't think it was the best way to convey the information presented.
Brians jokes, as annoying at they were, as metaphorical for child-human/function-nonfunction as they were, helped to push the show along, driving it in the direction that eventually was the cliff at the end.
Brians jokes, as annoying at they were, as metaphorical for child-human/function-nonfunction as they were, helped to push the show along, driving it in the direction that eventually was the cliff at the end.
May 9, 2016
I thought this was an interesting play, approachable and worthwhile, but spoiled by some of the awkward prejudice of the time in which it was written. I liked that the father was honest enough to say their life would be better without Joe (Josephine) but I didn't think the mother's view or their life together was fully explored enough. I also hated that the mother's past 'promiscuity' kept being raised.
November 30, 2019
Phew ok this is a nightmare. Maybe... MAYBE this was interesting or revolutionary in the 1960s. Not today. Today, it's a tell-don't-show trainwreck of a play about two parents talking about how much they're suffering while caring for their disabled daughter. Like y'all it is bad. 0/5 do not recommend.
May 30, 2022
I really don’t know how I feel about this book.
I don’t know who I would recommend it to, or even if I would recommend it to anyone at all.
There are a lot of messages about societal views and such, but it just kinda read as a bit problematic... but it’s SUPPOSED to be problematic, that’s the point, so maybe it is a success???
I don’t really know how I feel.
Update: this is supposed to be a comedy???? Now I’m even more confused 😭
I don’t know who I would recommend it to, or even if I would recommend it to anyone at all.
There are a lot of messages about societal views and such, but it just kinda read as a bit problematic... but it’s SUPPOSED to be problematic, that’s the point, so maybe it is a success???
I don’t really know how I feel.
Update: this is supposed to be a comedy???? Now I’m even more confused 😭
October 14, 2012
Nottingham Playhouse a couple of years ago. I'm a big fan of Peter Nichols. He captures just how crap it was to be a blossoming intellectual type in the 50's and 60s as well as the excitement and sense of revolution in the air.
December 13, 2023
I read this play for school and I still haven’t decided what I thought. It was pretty boring at some points and pretty unexpected at others. The family dynamic was not healthy and it was such a strange story. I’m not sure what I was supposed to get out of it.
November 26, 2011
out dated and terrible play. raises questions, hate all the characters.
July 29, 2012
A bit dated now but still possible to fin the characters believable, and emotive
July 16, 2014
As I recall, I thought it was a very witty play about a very horrible situation. But what did I know about having a disabled child? I was still mostly a child myself.
January 3, 2015
Distressing.
May 19, 2016
I think I originally added this to my list after reading "The Season". This play is about a couple as they deal with caring for their disabled daughter
June 7, 2024
what is it with school drama texts and being really fucked up - now that my exam is over im so glad i never have to read this again
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews