Dishevelledness

Patel has a ready wit, the sort of um-er cleverness that purports to be mental dishevelledness but actually implies a suave urbanity.

One by one, the people in this small French town are mutating into rhinoceroses and congregating in herds in the street, smashing and destroying everything they find. Only Berenger, hapless lover of a drink who wanders town in a state of morning-after dishevelledness, appears immune to the disease overtaking everyone around him.

He [Stewart Alcock]’s ­responsible for maintaining the ­“un-stately home”, complete with cobwebs and crumbling architraves. “We chose to adopt a conservation approach; our mantra is repair not restore. We try not to be tempted to turn back the clock,” he says. “We want to try to ensure when visitors arrive it has a sense of struggling and falling apart and dishevelledness.”