Admirers of Richard E. Grant will and should be impressed by the finely tuned restraint he brings to the pivotal character of Simon in Simon Gray's absorbing psychological study of detachment, self-control and self-deception - in short: his study of the fallibility of the Stoic ethos. Used to the maniacal image they associate with Grant's most famous role to date, audiences will enjoy the subtlety of his Simon, who seems to be a still, calm centre to a series of storms, unruffled and unsullied - until we find, bit by bit and piece by piece, that not all is as it seems.
      All the performances are superb. Liam Carrigan is an altogether convincing student, lazy, feckless, self-regarding and irritating. Peter Wright's arrogantly misogynistic and louche Stephen is brilliant, not least in the reversal in character that attends his sobered-up return at the end. The beauty of Amanda Ryan's naked breasts, exposed for a delightfully long time and despite all temptation otherwise, cannot distract from her convincingly clever performance - she is a female foil to Stephen, as assured of the power of her sexual allure as he of his indomitable masculinity - and like him a broken lance against Simon's carapace of serenity.
David Bamber was so wonderful a Reverend Mr Collins that it is hard to shake off the memory - though his Wood is just a such a man anyway, a mixture of would-be-Iago and Uriah Heep, oleaginous, failed, creepy, unctuous and vile in about equal measure. Brilliant. (One hopes that he does not persist in being Mr Collins as Cicero in television's 'Rome': what a choice for that part! They should have cast Gore Vidal, who after all has been a screen actor in his time.)
      And although Amanda Drew arrives late as the adulterous Beth, she brings all full circle with her confession, at last thereby breaking Simon's spell - the spell he is under, the spell he casts on others. In the very last moments emotion surfaces in Simon, imperceptibly, excoriatingly, and the humour that Simon Gray has used to let the characters down through successive layers of hell at last evaporates, to leave a single mordant note of collapse as its legacy.
AC Grayling