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Clip description
Phaedra (Susan Prior) nervously turns up to deliver a love poem to the greengrocer she fancies (Tia has told her she’d had sex with him – devastating to the sexually timid Phaedra). She finds the courage to go ahead, but the greengrocer 'Fred Zerella’ (Marin Mimica) and his colleague (Paul Kelman) mock her.
Curator’s notes
This is a memorable example of the film’s ability to find deadpan humour in social discomfort, awkwardness and mismatched agendas and communication styles.
The tensions produced by Phaedra’s anxiety and general ineptness (Prior is quite brilliant here) and the shopkeepers’ brash insensitivity makes the scene skin-crawlingly funny without ever becoming cruel. Some viewers may not find the scene funny at all, since Phaedra’s pain is so obvious.
