AN INSPECTOR CALLS is usually seen as a social message wrapped in a detective story, or thriller. Penned in 1945 but set in 1912, the author was writing from his personal experience of two world wars and was warning of another one to come unless people changed their behaviour. For him this meant taking moral…
In CALIFORWHY NOT STAY FOR BREAKFAST? has never failed to delight audiences, both young and old, with its comic treatment of the generation gap. It was a particular favourite when the English Theatre of Hamburg produced it in 1981 and again in 1989. The comedy opened at the Apollo Theatre, London, in 1973 and played…
In CALIFORNIA SUITE Neil Simon is again the witty and accurate observer of marital and family relationships. He is also at his most humane and compassionate. This humorous confection is divided into four parts, each with a different situation and different characters. In “Visitor from New York
PRIVATE LIVES, in the opinion of most critics, is the likeliest candidate as Noël Coward’s masterpiece. It, along with HAY FEVER, DESIGN FOR LIVING, PRESENT LAUGHTER and BLITHE SPIRIT, admit Coward to the line of great English comic dramatists such as Congreve, Sheridan and Wilde. “With the sole exception of Bernard Shaw, Noël Coward has…
Neil Simon’s comedies have given pleasure to literally millions of theatergoers over the past three decades. Critics have ranked his plays anywhere from a “delightful evening
Peter O’Donnell was born in 1920 and sold his first story at the age of 16. Drunk with success, he sobered up when he failed to sell another for two years. On leaving school, he worked for a magazine publishing company producing comics. Convinced the work was beneath his dignity, he soon had this notion…
TABLE MANNERS is part of a trilogy under the general heading THE NORMAN CONQUESTS, the other two plays being ROUND AND ROUND THE GARDEN and LIVING TOGETHER. The plays are not consecutive, but all occur during a single week-end and each takes place in a different part of the same house. Thus we are watching…
The play is set in a duchy in France, but most of the action takes place in a location called the Forest of Arden..’ Frederick has usurped the Duchy and exiled his older brother, Duke Senior. The Duke’s daughter Rosalind has been permitted to remain at court because she is the closest friend and cousin…
After a six day honeymoon a spanking new lawyer, who has just won his first case 6 cents in damages, and his young bride, who is as pretty and addled as they come, move into the new, high rent apartment that she has chosen for them But the difficulty is, in order to enjoy the…
Sister George is a famous character in a BBC soap opera series, a nurse who cycles about singing hymns, doing good deeds, and spreading cheer. Because of the struggle for ratings, and because there is gossip of notoriety in her personal life, the BBC decides to “kill her off” by having her involved in an…