[Even] in these days of stage nudity and mimic intercourse, such an episode [as the one opening Griffiths's The Party] still requires some strong dramatic justification for its sensational presentation. Partly because it is one of only two flurries of actual action which occur throughout the oratorio of talk and argument that evening in 1968, in this London flat, during the Paris revolt of students and workers. Partly because it throws some background light on the central character which nevertheless fails to illuminate his psyche much better than his physique.

How is he so rich, for example? (pp. 39, 41)

What is his secret sorrow, evoked with such Chekhovian melancholy by Mr. Pickup, with the dented smile and neglected hair of an old paintbrush left behind by the decorators?… Nobody up there asks him, and so nobody down here is ever told….

Such a subject [as the "Revolution" of May 1968] demands...