Bedbound

Synopsis

A crazed father and his crippled daughter sit on a squalid bed. He talks about his extraordinary past in furniture sales; she talks no less compulsively about anything at all, just to fill the terrifying silence in her head. Everything is frantic and broken and ugly because they can't stop talking. If only they could stop and sleep. Both very funny and full of pain, against the odds, Bedbound becomes a story of love and forgiveness.

Our Review:

Nancy Groves - 31 October 2009

Who knew the story of a small-town Irish furniture salesman and his daughter could be so disturbing – and so horribly, beautifully poetic? But in Enda Walsh’s one-act play Bedbound, revived by Little Everywhere and director Kate Budgen, ugly and beautiful, speech and silence, dissolve into new meanings.

Critics called the play a "tour de force" when it was first staged at the Royal Court in 2001 and it seems only to grow in stature in the smaller space of the Lion and Unicorn. The audience sit on the floor, our backs against the walls, as the eponymous bed stands inoffensively in the middle of the room, its cheap pine whorls giving little clue of what’s to come.

Daughter (Susan Stanley) sits up, her body strangely contorted, her face pained. Half-child, half-adult, her age is impossible to guess. And then the words begin to pour out. Something is badly wrong in this place. “All that’s left is to start over,&...

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Latest User Review

Barbara Stanley - 19 November 2009:

very moving and gripping performances from both actors!!...

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