Morgan, a Suitable Case for Treatment

Because it struggles to combine the Royal Court world of Anger and After playwrights (fantasising artist with Communist mother and rich wife in Kensington) with what Lester and Antonioni were doing to British cinema at the time, this version of David Mercer's TV play all but loses the theme of genuine madness underneath. Morgan, a part that suits David Warner down to the ground, sabotages his wife's second marriage, dressing up as a gorilla, rewiring her house, etc; but the character is itself short-circuited by being surrounded with eccentrics (Handl, Bresslaw, Mullard) as dotty as he is. Morgan sticks in the memory as a collection of funny moments, with the fatal habit (shared by If..., among others) of confronting issues, then farting around when the going gets rough.