At the end of 2004 Michael Crawford was taken ill, as a result of oversweating in the fat suit he wore to play the grossly obese character Count Fosco (originally reported as having the flu). From late December until early February 2005, Steve Varnom, the understudy, played the role. Michael Ball then took over on 21 February 2005 until early May. Ball received praise for his portrayal because he had reinvented the role. Nick Curtis, in his review for "The Evening Standard", wrote: "If Ball's Fosco lacks the extravagant comic flair of Crawford's original, there is a commensurate gain in menace. Arguably, this is no bad thing for a Victorian melodrama. Where Crawford was delightfully clownish, Ball's Fosco is altogether more sleek and dangerous. His wooing of the show's feisty heroine Marion...has a nasty edge to it."