The Prisoner of Second Avenue

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by Neil Simon

Mel Edison is a well-paid executive who has been sacked from a high-end Manhattan corporation that has gone bankrupt. Edna, his wife, obtains a job to help them make ends meet, but she too is dismissed. Things can't seem to get much worse...until he's robbed and his psychiatrist dies with $23,000 of his money, aggravated by air pollution killing his plants and the apartment walls being paper-thin, allowing him to hear his neighbors' intimate lives all the time. Mel does the only logical thing he can think of: he suffers a nervous breakdown, which turns out to be the best thing that has ever happened to hi

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Our favourite quote from The Prisoner of Second Avenue

Food used to be so good. I used to love food. I haven't eaten food since I was thirteen years old...I haven't had a real piece of bread in thirty years. If I knew what was going to happen, I would have saved some rolls when I was a kid.

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Food used to be so good. I used to love food. I haven't eaten food since I was thirteen years old...I haven't had a real piece of bread in thirty years. If I knew what was going to happen, I would have saved some rolls when I was a kid.

— Neil Simon, The Prisoner of Second Avenue