Coma

This was a new play by Last of the Summer Wine writer, Roy Clarke and directed by Liz Lucas. Performed in Southwell Minster (7-8 July) and Lincoln Drill Hall (11-13 July) in 2006.

At the beginning of Coma, we meet Mark, sitting in a wheelchair. Mark is an embittered and disillusioned sitcom writer. He is also in hospital, in a coma. We don’t know why he’s in a coma and neither does he. It appears that Mark is having an out-of-body experience but is mercifully fully dressed.
As the play progresses we meet the characters that people Mark’s sitcom. They are hanging around, waiting to see what will happen to them if Mark actually dies. There’s Willy, former head of MI6, China Division; Willy’s daughter, Fenella (Fuzzy), who’s horse-mad; Fuzzy’s bungling husband Amery, who began his career as a refrigeration engineer but, upon his meeting and marrying Fuzzy, was elevated to the position of Secret Agent 008; and finally E.E., an androgynous character, who, due to budget limitations, has to play Everyone Else in the sitcom, regardless of gender or nationality. Beth, Mark’s beloved wife also appears and together they embark on a journey to discover
exactly why Mark is in hospital, how he got there and what was happening to him when he fell into a coma.
The journey poses so many questions, that finally E.E. has to adopt the role of Truth, in order to guide Mark and Beth in the right direction…

Text taken from the programme