Fear and Misery : British Theatre Guide review

I found another review of Fear and Misery on the British Theatre Guide website.

This short play takes place over a dinner hardly enjoyed by a loving if rather stressed couple who have everything that one could desire - except inner security. It eventually becomes a curtain-raiser to War & Peace , which carries on the ideas that it raises but is not able to explore fully.

Dominic Cooke directs Joseph Millson and Joanna Riding playing Harry and Olivia the anxious thirtysomething parents of Alex, a baby suffering from nightmares, which they attribute to media tales of war.
The seemingly relaxed enjoyment of pasta and salad is highly appropriate for a created stage in the Royal Court's basement bar. Indeed, couples like this are the archetypal users of this trendy Sloane Square bar.

The setting is so intimate and claustrophobic that it is possible to trip up the actors in this Pinteresque exposé of modern fears.
Initially, like any affluent young parents their main concern is the baby alarm. However, there is more to blight what should be idyllic lives than a little infantile grizzling and tales of distant wars.

Their intimate exchanges become fierce, which is really shocking to those standing within a couple of feet of the dinner table. There is nothing more unsettling than being in the midst of a noisy domestic argument, especially when sex is at its heart.

The concerns are both realistic and slightly surreal. The woman, Olivia, half sees her partner Harry as a rapist, while he wants to give up their perfectly happy family home to move into a gated community where he will feel safe.
Their fears for their own future and that of their son may seem overblown but the presence in the kitchen of a headless soldier suggests that all is not well in their home but more particularly their society.