Review

neither David Bain or Robin Bain: it was their big, shabby, dimly lit house.

The kitchen was crammed with preserving jars. There was toetoe placed in vases. In the downstairs laundry, the washing machine shuddered and thumped. Everything looked authentically New Zealand; everything felt horribly tense. But neither David Bain or Robin Bain was the strangest or most damaged person in the household. Margaret Bain was cast as a total nutter.

“God talks to me,” she raved. “He has plans for me!”

If there were voices in her head, they gave her some pretty rank advice, such as drinking her own spit as medicine.

As Margaret Bain, Luanne Gordon was played her character with sensitivity. Joel Tobeck as Robin Bain was immense: his tics and winces hinted at a fragile, disappointed, but decent man.

Richard Crouchley played David Bain as a bit of a wretch but also as someone trying to do his best in a family that was falling apart. — The New Zealand Herald