Synopsis

This one act, one set play is a comedy drama with a running time of 45-50 minutes approximately. It is an affectionate look at family life with a disabled teenager.

Mark Dean is a fifty year old who could have had a brilliant career as an academic but retired from his post as a university lecturer to help look after his eighteen-year-old son Ben who is severely handicapped and confined to a wheelchair. He can make sounds and some movements, and he can understand what people are saying to him.

It's the day of Ben's eighteenth birthday and Mark's younger brother, Ralph and his wife and daughter, Jean and Pat are the only guests. Ralph and Mark are like chalk and cheese and Mark, being the brighter of the two, enjoys playing games to wind up his brother's family. At the root of the wind-ups is the fact that although Ralph is a successful businessman, he and his family have not taken a lot of interest in Ben over the years and have little sympathy for the sacrifices that Mark has had to make. The divide between the two families becomes more obvious as the play develops and ends with the cruellest wind up of them all.

Throughout the play we laugh with Ben and Mark, not at them, as together they hatch their plans to annoy Ralph. The actor playing Ben should appreciate and understand this, needing to develop his characterisation carefully. Done well this play is superb, performed badly it could become a mawkish spectacle.

Duration

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