The Warp

Press Comments on Edna

Press Reviews of Edna the Inebriate Woman

‘The difficulty is to control one’s superlatives and avoid descent into burbling hyperbole …

‘If Mr Sandford’s reputation needed any strengthening, which is doubtful, Edna should do it.’

Chris Dunkley, The Times

‘A bovver boot planted where it is likely to do most good. Right up the public’s television tube.

‘The most shocking and shaking scenes are Edna’s regression to childhood, her memory of being rejected by both her parents so that she herself has wandered ever since looking for that lost love.’

Nancy Banks Smith, The Guardian

‘Mr Sandford forces attention and involvement. The strength of his portrait lies in its depth and dimensions, comedy and sadness together springing naturally from the character.’

Sean Day-Lewis, The Telegraph

‘A very generous and human compassion linked to a detailed knowledge of the milieu which was depicted.’

Edward Lucie-Smith, New Statesman

‘A frightening personal dossier on what it is like for so many people to live beyond the reach of society’s day-to-day rescue services.’

Evening Standard

‘Mr Sandford has the combined talents of the creative artist and the dedicated sociologist.’

Frank Norman, Sunday Times

‘When Edna was first shown many people, including critics, commented that it seemed exaggerated. The flashbacks to her early life, the scenes in the mental hospital, the attitudes of officials at the public enquiry, seem larger than life. Those who work in the field know that they are depressingly accurate.’

Colin Hodgetts, Church Times

‘The surprising thing about Edna was not that she drank, but that she was not perpetually drunk. In a society where alcohol is still the opiate of the successful why should not those who society brands as failures, as the dregs, drain the dregs of the bottle?’

Alan Brien, Sunday Times

‘Should help generate public understanding and sympathy.’

The Observer

‘I regard you as the best dramatic poet of social science problems we have in this country.’

From a Letter from a Probation Officer

‘The play married art and compassion in a way I’ve hardly seen before ... the experience of having seen the play has sharpened the awareness of many committee members.’

From a Letter from a member of a Social Services Committee

Jeremy Sandford FanClub Archives
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