Michel Barnier was adamant this week that “Brexit is not a game.” He’s absolutely right. The first phase of Brexit negotiations was a tragicomedy | Source images via EPA and Getty Images Brexit talks: A tragicomedy in 5 acts A shocker! A stinker! Worse than the Tory manifesto!

LONDON — With an international cast of characters, moments of high drama and two leading men who enjoy hamming it up for all they’re worth, the Brexit talks could have been a five-star classic.

Alas, it hasn't worked out that way. A botched election by Theresa May, personality clashes, the Brits' perceived lack of seriousness, and major differences of opinion on almost every issue have resulted in five rounds of negotiations that produced very little and increased the likelihood of there not being a deal at all.

Thursday is the final day of the final week of the first phase of the negotiations, and officials say there's almost no chance of a last-minute game-changer.

Michel Barnier, the EU's leading man, was adamant this week that “Brexit is not a game.” He’s absolutely right. The first phase of Brexit negotiations was a tragicomedy.

Act 1 — June: The fight of the summer commences (and is over quickly)

The first round, conducted against a backdrop of political instability in the U.K. less than two weeks after a snap general election, drew heavily on that classic EU sub-genre — talks about talks.

High on the agenda was the question of sequencing. U.K. Brexit Secretary Davis had predicted that competing visions of the sequencing of talks would be the “row of the summer.” Barnier’s negotiating mandate required “sufficient progress” on key withdrawal issues — citizens’ rights, money and Northern Ireland — before any talks on the U.K.'s future relationship with the EU could begin. Davis said the U.K. wanted “everything packaged up together.”

Much to the chagrin of the U.K. negotiating team, the defining image of the first full round of talks was David Davis and his team meeting Barnier et al without any notes.

But when the one-day round of talks ended, it was confirmed the U.K. had bowed to the EU’s formal sequencing plan and also signed up to a framework for talks that divided the withdrawal issues up between leading officials and set a timetable for monthly negotiating rounds — a structure many in the U.K. team now regard as a clear “mistake,” according to one British official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Davis and the U.K. would continue to press home the point that some withdrawal issues — chiefly Northern Ireland and the status of its border in a new customs arrangement — can’t be settled without a discussion on the future relationship. They are still arguing about it now, with Chancellor Philip Hammond saying Wednesday that he believed EU negotiators now agreed with the premise.

Act 2 – July: Sorry, I’ve forgotten my lines

Much to the chagrin of the U.K. negotiating team, the defining image of the first full round of talks — officially the second round — was David Davis and his team meeting Barnier et al without any notes.

There was a reasonable explanation from the U.K. team for the offending, note-free photo (after many newspaper stings, officials face strict edicts about carrying sensitive documents that might be photographed) but it fed a narrative that the Brits were not well-prepared.

Money surfaced as the major source of tension. EU officials were taken aback when the U.K. did not present a formal counter-proposal to the EU’s assessment of which obligations should be included in the divorce bill. In fact, Davis wouldn't even concede there would be a “net flow” of cash from London to Brussels as a result of Brexit.

Hopes had been high for a quick settlement to the question of citizens’ rights but disagreements about the role of the European Court of Justice, and the EU’s refusal to allow U.K. citizens living in one EU state to resettle in another blocked progress. Officials began to mutter darkly — but very much anonymous — that the goal of Barnier declaring “sufficient progress” in time for October’s European Council summit might not be achieved.

Act 3 — August: Bust-up in the Berlaymont

Shakespeare kicked off Act 3 of "Henry V" with the "Once more unto the breach" speech, the prelude to a bloody battle in which many English and French were put to the sword.

It wasn’t quite that bad in the Berlaymont committee room where the British, up against an EU team led by French economist Stéphanie Riso, picked apart the EU’s Brexit divorce bill assumptions. But it was pretty bad.

Even the ever-louche Davis said it was a “high-stress week.”

The closing press conference of the August round of talks was the tensest of them all. The U.K. had challenged the legal basis of the EU’s financial claims, including its long-term budget plan, which the EU had thought would be the easy part.

Meanwhile, what the U.K. was asking for in terms of a trading relationship based on the EU accepting Britain's own, freely-chosen regulatory standards was “simply impossible,” Barnier said.

Something would have to give.

Act 4 – September: We’ll always have Florence

Perhaps spurred on by the bleak outcome of August’s talks, Theresa May delivered a speech in Florence that broke the logjam in certain areas — mainly financial.

Barnier hailed “a new dynamic” after May assured the EU that it would meet its EU budgetary obligations and she also cleared the air by insisting that any transition period that the two sides agreed on would see the U.K. operating under existing EU rules and regulations.

Incremental and technical progress was made in the negotiating rooms as, in truth, it had been all along. But the role of the ECJ remained a stumbling block in discussions on citizens’ rights. On Northern Ireland, agreement about maintaining the Common Travel Area — a special travel zone between the Republic of Ireland and the U.K., the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands — could not mask the inability of the two sides to progress without also talking about a future customs deal.

Act 5 – October: Can we start again, please?

No applause. No standing ovation. No curtain call.

One week out from the October European Council, with the two sides signaling that no major breakthrough has been forthcoming, with the European Parliament having ruled that "sufficient progress" has not been achieved, with Council President Donald Tusk talking about December, not October as crunch time, the final act of phase 1 looks set to end with a whimper.

U.K. officials' main hope now is that European leaders at least agree to loosen Barnier’s negotiating mandate to allow talks on the transition deal — although even that looks highly unlikely at this Council summit. The Brits also hope that from now on, with only 18 months until Brexit, talks can be organized in a more “organic” fashion, rather than the rigid timetable and four-week cycles of phase 1, according to one U.K. official.

“We think it should stem from how many discussions need to happen,” another official said, suggesting a move away from the regular Brussels media set-pieces that the audience of this tragicomedy has come to enjoy so much.