A number of critics felt that the play was purposely trying to be repulsive. Critic Maureen Paton described the play as “ludicrously bad” and a “repugnant tiresome story… Mr. Ridley’s Grimm obsessions are in the worst possible taste”, concluding that “This pointless wallow makes Marat-Sade seem like Pontins Holiday Camp.” Melanie McDonagh for "The Evening Standard" wrote that “Philip Ridley, is simply the Fat Boy from the Pickwick Papers, who sneaks up on old ladies and hisses: "I want to make your flesh creep".” For "The Jewish Chronicle", David Nathan commented “To the Theatre of the Absurd, the Theatre of Comedy and the Operating Theatre you can now add the Theatre of Yuk” and argued that although “The arousal of disgust is as legitimate a dramatic objective as the arousal of any other strong emotion, but as an end in itself it seems pointless.”