‘I saved lives and I got rewarded and I’m bloody well not going to apologise for it.’

Sir Neil Marriot had a ‘good pandemic’, becoming familiar to millions from his TV appearances as a government medical advisor. His service even earned him a knighthood, and he is now rewarding himself with a lavish birthday party.

But, amidst the oak panelling, the champagne and the silver service, his family are at one another’s throats again, and he thinks there’s something familiar - and somehow unsettling - about one of the catering staff…

The Snail House is a play about how the past impacts on the present, and how overconfidence can have disastrous consequences. Written and directed by Richard Eyre, it premiered at Hampstead Theatre, London, in October 2022.