Of compulsion and compassion

Commanding Voices New End, NW3

HOW do you dramatise mental illness? In Robert Eddison's new play, Ben suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, which is to say that, in Richard Howard's production, he flips his lid if his slippers aren't neatly aligned.

Dad, a Cabinet minister, has little sympathy. Mum thinks dad's lack of sympathy is to blame. Eddison relates with compassion this story of family strife among the privileged classes and sheds some light on OCD.

But factual interest is no substitute for drama, and sympathetic turns from the seven-strong cast can't provide the excitement that Eddison's engaging but unchallenging play lacks.

Like the Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind, Commanding Voices suggests that psychiatric disorder is best combated, not by professional expertise, but by love and happiness. Aspiring artist Ben's OCD emerges when his patrician father insists he attend Oxford rather than the Slade. A face-off ensues, dad kicks the slippers and Ben is dispatched to a Harley Street shrink. If Gregory Cox as the sneering Dr Grubshaw had a moustache, I'm sure he'd twiddle it. But soon Ben is referred to the bluff old family GP, whose homespun treatment effects an improbable turnaround.

If this seems a little facile, there's compensation to be found in several likeable, humane performances. As Ben, Glyn Williams's warmth shines through crippling anxiety. Jeremy Child gives his thrusting politico a redeeming amiability. John Burgess points up the loveable ridiculousness of the octogenarian GP.

Copyright 2002
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