But, despite the whimsy, her sure comic touch, unfailing empathy and gentle wisdom win through.
A good comic wants to inspire empathy with the audience, not envy, and that is more easily achieved if a performer has an everyman or everywoman appearance.
With gumption, empathy, and comic awkwardness, he ventures into people's lives and tries to help them resolve things from the past: an unsolved human mystery, lingering guilt, a falling-out, hurt that's turned to grievance.
Richard Griffiths, who has died aged 65 from complications following heart surgery, was a fine actor defined by his largeness of spirit, his comic instinct and his empathy with outsiders, as well as his undeniable physical size.
He seemed something of a throwback, but there are very few today who could rival his armour-plated technique, his almost uncanny empathy with comic style ranging from the Restoration to Rattigan – his trademark stillness and decorum on stage was at odds with false notions of flounce and frilliness – or his incisive articulation.
Written with devastating economy (the influence of Connell's epigrammatic chapters can be found in Zadie Smith's NW), this novel is a quiet masterpiece of empathy, irony and comic understatement.
The brutal gang rape in 2012 of a student in Delhi led Devineni to create Priya's Shakti, a groundbreaking comic book that aims to inspire empathy for rape survivors in readers.
Ms. Dee channels that same spirit of empathy into her performance, and "Comic Potential" glows warmingly with her transforming human touch.
The former Eurotrash host shows great sympathy - empathy, perhaps - for this French comic legend, a court jester who angered the king.
