Atom Egoyan's reworking of Beckett's original television piece Eh Joe, with a silent Michael Gambon's face blown up on a giant video monitor listening to an unseen Penelope Wilton's voice, had critics extolling its voyeuristic intensity and musing over its form.
At The Telegraph Charles Spencer praised "a work without mercy that achieves an impact out of all proportion to its 30-minute length". "A small, strangely mesmerising forgotten gem." declared Kate Bassett at The Independent on Sunday, wondering whether permission for Egoyan to use the video monitor indicated that the notoriously strict Beckett estate might be loosening its embargo on any but the most precisely faithful interpretations of the master.
The necessarily minimal performances prompted plenty of superlatives. Gambon's "lived-in, lined and pouchy face... silent yet amazingly eloquent" reminded Charles Spencer of Rembrandt's searching late self-portraits, while Kate Bassett praised "a silent star".
Offstage, Penelope Wilton's voice performance as what Benedict Nightingale in the Times describes as "the voice of a guilt-mongering woman who has, one gradually realises, taken up permanent residence in the title character's head" receives less attention than the fine nuances of Gambon's performance on it. The brief notice her performance does attract - "Marvellous" (The Times) - is however, thoroughly positive.
