2016 definitely likes its comedy dark, and after the serious version as the Almeida used the moving
(literally)
Boy to look into a young man feeling disenfranchised in modern Britain,
the National takes the same subject and plays it for big laughs. Suhayla El-Bushra's
The Suicide is an adaptation of a controversial Stalin-era Russian satire by
Nikolai Erdman, and sees Javone Prince's affable everyman Sam Desai frustrated after
five years without a job, his wife Maya (Rebecca Scroggs) having to support them
both, and the two living in her mother Sarah's (Ashley McGuire) flat. When he tries
to help a friend he ends up late for the Job Centre, meaning he has his benefits
sanctioned and, feeling completely useless, goes to the top of his tower block in
the middle of the night, toying with the idea of jumping off.
