BIRTHDAY SUITE was first produced at the Redgrave Theatre, Farnham in 1983. Subsequently there were two national tours and many provincial productions. It has also been produced in France, Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, Holland, Poland, South Africa, and the United States. The fast moving comedy takes place in two adjoining hotel bedrooms. Geoff Tippett tells his…
RELATIVELY SPEAKING concerns two couples, one young and one middle-aged, each containing one unfaithful partner. Greg wants to marry Ginny, who has only recently broken off an affair with her boss, Philip. Ginny goes down to Philip’s country home to get back some love letters, after telling Greg that she is going to visit her…
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…
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…
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…
This long-running Broadway comedy (also a popular film) is not only about a love affair taking place once a year. It is also a reflection of 25 years of American manners, morals and attitudes mirrored in the changing lives and personalities of its two characters. George picks up Doris in a California inn in 1951,…