They throw the emphasis on to the individual performances, and occasionally, drolly, close in to frame a scene like an enormous pair of inverted commas.
She queried -- bitingly and drolly -- the role of women, religion, marriage and wealth, in ways that no one before her had attempted, and no one since has surpassed.
Because, however drolly the situation is presented, the fact is not to be got over that the lady seriously supposes her husband to be in league with another man.
His role as arena-filling performer (or "megastar", as he later quips, drolly implying an incongruity to the label) is hardly the only aspect of his career, though.
