Cold Comfort Farm
Encyclopedia
Cold Comfort Farm is a comic novel
by Stella Gibbons
, published in 1932. It parodies the romanticised, sometimes doom-laden accounts of rural life popular at the time, by writers such as Mary Webb
. Gibbons was working for the Evening Standard
in 1928 when they decided to serialise Webb's first novel, The Golden Arrow, and had the job of summarising the plot of earlier installments. Other novelists in the tradition parodied by Cold Comfort Farm are D. H. Lawrence
, Sheila Kaye-Smith
and Thomas Hardy
; and going further back, Mary E Mann and the Brontë
sisters.
(Patcham Court Farm). As is typical in a certain genre of romantic nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century literature, each of the farm's inhabitants has some long-festering emotional problem caused by ignorance, hatred or fear, and the farm is badly run. Flora, being a level-headed, urban woman, applies modern common sense to their problems and helps them all adapt to the twentieth century.
and Mary Webb
are the chief influence. According to Hammill, the farm is modelled on Dormer House in Webb's The House in Dormer Forest, and Aunt Ada Doom on Mrs. Velindre in the same book. The farm-obsessed Reuben's original is in Kaye-Smith's Sussex Gorse, and the Quivering Brethren on the Colgate Brethren in Kaye-Smith's Susan Spray.
The speech of the Sussex characters is a parody of rural dialects (in particular Sussex and West Country accents — another parody of novelists who use phonics to portray various accents and dialects) and is sprinkled with fake but authentic-sounding local vocabulary such as mollocking (Seth's favourite activity, undefined but invariably resulting in the pregnancy of a local maid), sukebind (a weed whose flowering in the Spring symbolises the quickening of sexual urges in man and beast; the word is presumably formed by analogy to 'woodbine' (honeysuckle
) and bindweed
) and clettering (an impractical method used by Adam for washing dishes, which involves scraping them with a dry twig or clettering stick).
Her portrayal of libidinous Meyerburg, "Mr Mybug", may have been aimed at Hampstead intellectuals (particularly Freudians
and admirers of D. H. Lawrence
), but has also been seen as anti-semitic in its description of his physiognomy and nameplay (Humble, 2001: 30).
, often said to be one of the rural writers parodied by Gibbons in CCF, arguably gets her own back with a tongue-in-cheek reference to CCF within a subplot of A Valiant Woman (1939), set in a rapidly modernising village (Pearce:2008). Upper middle-class teenager, Lucia, turns from writing charming rural poems to a great Urban Proletarian Novel: "… all about people who aren't married going to bed in a Manchester slum and talking about the Means Test." Her philistine grandmother is dismayed: she prefers ‘cosy’ rural novels, and knows Lucia is ignorant of proletarian life:
Kaye-Smith layers the ironies here within a subtext of contesting claims to authenticity. Not only does the older woman fail to recognise CCF is a comedy, but her family own farms and hires labourers and managers rather than actually working the land themselves; nor have they ever had to try to make a basic living from their own manual labour. Like the heroine of the novel, Kaye-Smith herself was a middle-class townie who moved to a small village, where she converted an old oasthouse to a large modern home. However Kaye-Smith generously allows Lucia to succeed: her novel The Price of Bread is published (by a left-wing book club) and becomes a success.
----
In Howling, Sussex:
And also:
The interrelations of the characters are complex. The family tree below is an attempt to illustrate them as they stand at the end of the novel.
into a slum district. She did seem to have predicted a Second World War - the "the Anglo-Nicaraguan wars of '46" are alluded to in the experiences of some characters - but she probably did not appreciate the scale of that war. Nor can her 'futurism' anticipate social changes during and after that war which rendered some of the book's attitudes to class and Jews archaic.
.
A sequel, Conference at Cold Comfort Farm, was published in 1949 to mixed reviews.
. In 1968 a three-part serial was made, starring Sarah Badel
as Flora Poste, Brian Blessed
as Reuben, Peter Egan
as Seth, and Alastair Sim
as Amos. In 1995 there was a made-for-TV film, which was generally well-received, with critics like the New York Times' Janet Maslin writing that this screen version "gets it exactly right."
The film starred Kate Beckinsale
as Flora, Joanna Lumley
(also famed from her role as Patsy in the British TV comedy "Absolutely Fabulous") as her friend and mentor Mary Smiling, Rufus Sewell
as Seth, Ian McKellen
as Amos Starkadder, Eileen Atkins
as Judith, Stephen Fry
as Mybug, Miriam Margolyes
as Mrs. Beetle, and Angela Thorne
as Mrs Hawk-Monitor. The 1995 version was produced by Gramercy Pictures, in collaboration with BBC Films and Thames International, and was helmed by Academy Award-winning director John Schlesinger
, from a script by novelist and scholar Sir Malcolm Bradbury
. It was filmed on location at Brightling, East Sussex. In 1996, this new version also had a brief theatrical run in North America and Australia. Cold Comfort Farm is available on DVD in both the US and UK.
The BBC
produced a four-part radio adaptation in 1981. Patricia Gallimore played Flora, and Miriam Margolyes
played Mrs. Beetle. In January 1983, a sequel, Conference at Cold Comfort Farm, set several years later, when Flora is married with several children, was broadcast (Part 1: "There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm", and Part 2: "Reuben's Oath - or Seven Good Men and True").
The book has also been turned into a play
by Paul Doust. The plot was simplified a little in order to make it suitable for the stage. Many characters, including Mybug, Mrs. Beetle, Meriam, Mark Dolour and Mrs. Smiling, are omitted. Meriam's character was merged with Rennet, who ends up with Urk at the end. As a consequence, both Rennet's and Urk's roles are much bigger than in the book. Mrs. Smiling is absent because the action begins with Flora's arrival in Sussex; Charles appears only to drop her off and pick her up again at the end. Mark Dolour, though mentioned several times in the play as a running joke, never appears on stage. Finally, instead of visiting a psychoanalyst to cure her obsession, Judith leaves with Neck at the end.
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Stella Gibbons
Stella Gibbons
Stella Dorothea Gibbons was an English novelist, journalist, poet, and short-story writer.Her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm, won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933...
, published in 1932. It parodies the romanticised, sometimes doom-laden accounts of rural life popular at the time, by writers such as Mary Webb
Mary Webb
Mary Webb , was an English romantic novelist and poet of the early 20th century, whose work is set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters and people which she knew. Her novels have been successfully dramatized, most notably the film Gone to Earth in 1950 by Michael...
. Gibbons was working for the Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
in 1928 when they decided to serialise Webb's first novel, The Golden Arrow, and had the job of summarising the plot of earlier installments. Other novelists in the tradition parodied by Cold Comfort Farm are D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
, Sheila Kaye-Smith
Sheila Kaye-Smith
Sheila Kaye-Smith was an English writer, known for her many novels set in the borderlands of Sussex and Kent in the English regional tradition...
and Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
; and going further back, Mary E Mann and the Brontë
Brontë
The Brontës were a nineteenth-century literary family associated with Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The sisters, Charlotte , Emily , and Anne , are well-known as poets and novelists...
sisters.
Plot summary
The heroine, Flora, stays at Aunt Ada Doom's isolated farm in the fictional village of Howling in SussexSussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
(Patcham Court Farm). As is typical in a certain genre of romantic nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century literature, each of the farm's inhabitants has some long-festering emotional problem caused by ignorance, hatred or fear, and the farm is badly run. Flora, being a level-headed, urban woman, applies modern common sense to their problems and helps them all adapt to the twentieth century.
Inspirations
As parody of the "loam and lovechild" genre of historical novel, Cold Comfort Farm alludes specifically to a number of novels both in the past and currently in vogue when Gibbons was writing. According to Faye Hammill's Cold Comfort Farm, D. H. Lawrence, and English Literary Culture Between the Wars, the works of Sheila Kaye-SmithSheila Kaye-Smith
Sheila Kaye-Smith was an English writer, known for her many novels set in the borderlands of Sussex and Kent in the English regional tradition...
and Mary Webb
Mary Webb
Mary Webb , was an English romantic novelist and poet of the early 20th century, whose work is set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters and people which she knew. Her novels have been successfully dramatized, most notably the film Gone to Earth in 1950 by Michael...
are the chief influence. According to Hammill, the farm is modelled on Dormer House in Webb's The House in Dormer Forest, and Aunt Ada Doom on Mrs. Velindre in the same book. The farm-obsessed Reuben's original is in Kaye-Smith's Sussex Gorse, and the Quivering Brethren on the Colgate Brethren in Kaye-Smith's Susan Spray.
The speech of the Sussex characters is a parody of rural dialects (in particular Sussex and West Country accents — another parody of novelists who use phonics to portray various accents and dialects) and is sprinkled with fake but authentic-sounding local vocabulary such as mollocking (Seth's favourite activity, undefined but invariably resulting in the pregnancy of a local maid), sukebind (a weed whose flowering in the Spring symbolises the quickening of sexual urges in man and beast; the word is presumably formed by analogy to 'woodbine' (honeysuckle
Honeysuckle
Honeysuckles are arching shrubs or twining vines in the family Caprifoliaceae, native to the Northern Hemisphere. There are about 180 species of honeysuckle, 100 of which occur in China; Europe, India and North America have only about 20 native species each...
) and bindweed
Bindweed
Bindweed may refer to:* Convolvulaceae , a family including about 60 genera and more than 1,650 species** Calystegia , a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants...
) and clettering (an impractical method used by Adam for washing dishes, which involves scraping them with a dry twig or clettering stick).
Her portrayal of libidinous Meyerburg, "Mr Mybug", may have been aimed at Hampstead intellectuals (particularly Freudians
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
and admirers of D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
), but has also been seen as anti-semitic in its description of his physiognomy and nameplay (Humble, 2001: 30).
Sequels and responses
Sheila Kaye-SmithSheila Kaye-Smith
Sheila Kaye-Smith was an English writer, known for her many novels set in the borderlands of Sussex and Kent in the English regional tradition...
, often said to be one of the rural writers parodied by Gibbons in CCF, arguably gets her own back with a tongue-in-cheek reference to CCF within a subplot of A Valiant Woman (1939), set in a rapidly modernising village (Pearce:2008). Upper middle-class teenager, Lucia, turns from writing charming rural poems to a great Urban Proletarian Novel: "… all about people who aren't married going to bed in a Manchester slum and talking about the Means Test." Her philistine grandmother is dismayed: she prefers ‘cosy’ rural novels, and knows Lucia is ignorant of proletarian life:
"That silly child! Did she really think she could write a novel? Well, of course, modern novels might encourage her to think so. There was nothing written nowadays worth reading. The book on her knee was called Cold Comfort Farm and had been written by a young woman who was said to be very clever and had won an important literary prize. But she couldn't get on with it at all. It was about life on a farm, but the girl obviously knew nothing about country life. To anyone who, like herself, had always lived in the country, the whole thing was too ridiculous and impossible for words."
Kaye-Smith layers the ironies here within a subtext of contesting claims to authenticity. Not only does the older woman fail to recognise CCF is a comedy, but her family own farms and hires labourers and managers rather than actually working the land themselves; nor have they ever had to try to make a basic living from their own manual labour. Like the heroine of the novel, Kaye-Smith herself was a middle-class townie who moved to a small village, where she converted an old oasthouse to a large modern home. However Kaye-Smith generously allows Lucia to succeed: her novel The Price of Bread is published (by a left-wing book club) and becomes a success.
----
Characters (in order of appearance)
In London:- Flora Poste: the heroine, a nineteen-year old from London whose parents are deceased.
- Mary Smiling: a widow, Flora's friend in London.
- Charles Fairford: Flora's cousin in London, studying to become a parsonParsonIn the pre-Reformation church, a parson was the priest of an independent parish church, that is, a parish church not under the control of a larger ecclesiastical or monastic organization...
.
In Howling, Sussex:
- Judith Starkadder: Flora's cousin, wife of Amos. She has an unhealthy passion for her own son Seth.
- Seth Starkadder: younger son of Amos and Judith. Handsome and over-sexed. Has a passion for the movies.
- Ada Doom: Judith's mother, a reclusive, miserly widow, owner of the farm, who constantly complains of having seen "something nasty in the woodshed" when she was a girl.
- Adam Lambsbreath: 90 year old farm hand, obsessed with his cows and with Elfine.
- Mark Dolour: farm hand.
- Amos Starkadder: Judith's husband, and hellfire preacher at the Church of the Quivering Brethren. ("Ye're all damned!")
- Amos's half-cousins: Micah, married to Susan; Urk, a bachelor who wants to marry Elfine; Ezra, married to Jane; Caraway, married to Lettie; Harkaway.
- Amos's half-brothers: Luke, married to Prue; Mark, divorced from Susan and married to Phoebe.
- Reuben Starkadder: Amos's heir, jealous of anyone who stands between him and his inheritance of the farm.
- Meriam Beetle: hired girl, and mother of Seth's four children.
- Elfine: an intellectual, outdoor-loving girl of the Starkadder family, who is besotted with the local squire, Richard Hawk-Monitor of Hautcouture Hall.
- Mrs Beetle: cleaning lady, rather more sensible than the Starkadders.
- Mrs Murther: landlady of The Condemn'd Man public housePublic houseA public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
. - Mr Meyerburg (whom Flora thinks of as "Mr Mybug"): a writer who pursues Flora and insists that she only refuses him because she is sexually repressed. He is working on a thesis that the works of the Brontë sisters were written by their brother Branwell BrontëBranwell BrontëPatrick Branwell Brontë was a painter and poet, the only son of the Brontë family, and the brother of the writers Charlotte, Emily, and Anne.-Youth:...
. - Rennet: unwanted daughter of Susan and Mark
- Dr Müdel: psychoanalyst.
And also:
- Graceless, Aimless, Feckless and Pointless: the farm's cows, and Adam Lambsbreath's chief charge. Occasionally given to losing extremities.
- Viper: the horse, pulls the trap which is the farm's main transportation
- Big Business: the bull, spends most of his time inside the barn.
The interrelations of the characters are complex. The family tree below is an attempt to illustrate them as they stand at the end of the novel.
Flora's solutions
The novel ends when Flora, with the aid of her handbook The Higher Common Sense, has solved each character's problem. These solutions are:- Meriam: Flora introduces her to the concept of contraceptionContraceptionContraception is the prevention of the fusion of gametes during or after sexual activity. The term contraception is a contraction of contra, which means against, and the word conception, meaning fertilization...
. - Seth: Flora introduces him to a Hollywood film director, Earl P. Neck, who hires him as a screen idol.
- Amos: Flora persuades him to buy a Ford van and become a travelling preacher. He loses interest in running the farm and hands it over to Reuben.
- Elfine: Flora teaches her some social graces and dress sense so that Richard Hawk-Monitor falls in love with her.
- Urk: forgets his desire for Elfine and marries Meriam.
- Mr Mybug: falls in love with and marries Rennet.
- Judith: Flora hires a psychoanalyst, Dr Müdel, who, over lunch, transfers Judith's obsession from Seth to himself until he can set her interest on old churches instead.
- Ada: Flora uses a copy of Vogue magazine to tempt her to join the twentieth century, and spend some of her fortune on living the high life in ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. - Adam: is given a job as cow-herd at Hautcouture Hall.
- Graceless, Aimless, Feckless and Pointless: go with Adam to Hautcouture Hall
- Big Business: Flora lets him out into the sunlight.
- Flora: marries Charles.
Futurism
An aspect of the novel overlooked by many recent adaptations is that the story was set in the future. Although the book was published in 1932, the setting is an unspecified near future, containing developments that Gibbons thought might have been invented by then, such as TV phones and air taxis. The book also refers (usually facetiously) to future social/demographic changes, such as the degradation of MayfairMayfair
Mayfair is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster.-History:Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today...
into a slum district. She did seem to have predicted a Second World War - the "the Anglo-Nicaraguan wars of '46" are alluded to in the experiences of some characters - but she probably did not appreciate the scale of that war. Nor can her 'futurism' anticipate social changes during and after that war which rendered some of the book's attitudes to class and Jews archaic.
Other novels
1940 saw the publication of Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm (actually a collection of short stories, of which Christmas was the first). It is a prequel of sorts, set before Flora's arrival at the farm, and is a parody of a typical family ChristmasChristmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
.
A sequel, Conference at Cold Comfort Farm, was published in 1949 to mixed reviews.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
Cold Comfort Farm has been adapted for television twice by the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. In 1968 a three-part serial was made, starring Sarah Badel
Sarah Badel
Sarah Badel is a British stage and film actress. She is the daughter of actors Alan Badel and Yvonne Owen.-Theatrical career:...
as Flora Poste, Brian Blessed
Brian Blessed
Brian Blessed is an English actor, known for his sonorous voice and "hearty, king-sized portrayals".-Early life:The son of William Blessed, a socialist miner, and Hilda Wall, Blessed was born in the town of Goldthorpe, West Riding of Yorkshire, England...
as Reuben, Peter Egan
Peter Egan
Peter Egan is a British actor known for playing smooth neighbour Paul Ryman in 1980s sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles. He is married to retired actress Myra Frances.-Early life:...
as Seth, and Alastair Sim
Alastair Sim
Alastair George Bell Sim, CBE was a Scottish character actor who appeared in a string of classic British films. He is best remembered in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1951 film Scrooge, and for his portrayal of Miss Fritton, the headmistress in two St. Trinian's films...
as Amos. In 1995 there was a made-for-TV film, which was generally well-received, with critics like the New York Times' Janet Maslin writing that this screen version "gets it exactly right."
The film starred Kate Beckinsale
Kate Beckinsale
Kathryn Bailey "Kate" Beckinsale is an English actress. After some minor television roles, she made her film debut in Much Ado About Nothing while still a student at Oxford University...
as Flora, Joanna Lumley
Joanna Lumley
Joanna Lamond Lumley, OBE, FRGS is a British actress, voice-over artist, former-model and author, best known for her roles in British television series Absolutely Fabulous portraying Edina Monsoon's best friend, Patsy Stone, as well as parts in The New Avengers, Sapphire & Steel, and Sensitive...
(also famed from her role as Patsy in the British TV comedy "Absolutely Fabulous") as her friend and mentor Mary Smiling, Rufus Sewell
Rufus Sewell
Rufus Frederik Sewell is an English actor. In film, he has appeared in The Woodlanders, Dangerous Beauty, Dark City, A Knight's Tale, The Illusionist, Tristan and Isolde, and Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence. On television, he starred in the 2010 mini-series The Pillars of the Earth...
as Seth, Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
as Amos Starkadder, Eileen Atkins
Eileen Atkins
Dame Eileen June Atkins, DBE is an English actress and occasional screenwriter.- Early life :Atkins was born in the Mothers' Hospital in Clapton, a Salvation Army women's hostel in East London...
as Judith, Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
as Mybug, Miriam Margolyes
Miriam Margolyes
Miriam Margolyes, OBE is an English actress and voice artist. Her earliest roles were in theatre and after several supporting roles in film and television she won a BAFTA Award for her role in The Age of Innocence .-Early life:...
as Mrs. Beetle, and Angela Thorne
Angela Thorne
Angela Thorne is an English actress who is best known for her roles in To the Manor Born and Anyone for Denis?-Early life:Angela Thorne was born in Karachi, British India, , in 1939...
as Mrs Hawk-Monitor. The 1995 version was produced by Gramercy Pictures, in collaboration with BBC Films and Thames International, and was helmed by Academy Award-winning director John Schlesinger
John Schlesinger
John Richard Schlesinger, CBE was an English film and stage director and actor.-Early life:Schlesinger was born in London into a middle-class Jewish family, the son of Winifred Henrietta and Bernard Edward Schlesinger, a physician...
, from a script by novelist and scholar Sir Malcolm Bradbury
Malcolm Bradbury
Sir Malcolm Stanley Bradbury CBE was an English author and academic.-Life:Bradbury was the son of a railwayman. His family moved to London in 1935, but returned to Sheffield in 1941 with his brother and mother...
. It was filmed on location at Brightling, East Sussex. In 1996, this new version also had a brief theatrical run in North America and Australia. Cold Comfort Farm is available on DVD in both the US and UK.
The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
produced a four-part radio adaptation in 1981. Patricia Gallimore played Flora, and Miriam Margolyes
Miriam Margolyes
Miriam Margolyes, OBE is an English actress and voice artist. Her earliest roles were in theatre and after several supporting roles in film and television she won a BAFTA Award for her role in The Age of Innocence .-Early life:...
played Mrs. Beetle. In January 1983, a sequel, Conference at Cold Comfort Farm, set several years later, when Flora is married with several children, was broadcast (Part 1: "There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm", and Part 2: "Reuben's Oath - or Seven Good Men and True").
The book has also been turned into a play
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
by Paul Doust. The plot was simplified a little in order to make it suitable for the stage. Many characters, including Mybug, Mrs. Beetle, Meriam, Mark Dolour and Mrs. Smiling, are omitted. Meriam's character was merged with Rennet, who ends up with Urk at the end. As a consequence, both Rennet's and Urk's roles are much bigger than in the book. Mrs. Smiling is absent because the action begins with Flora's arrival in Sussex; Charles appears only to drop her off and pick her up again at the end. Mark Dolour, though mentioned several times in the play as a running joke, never appears on stage. Finally, instead of visiting a psychoanalyst to cure her obsession, Judith leaves with Neck at the end.