After reading 20% of the play I stopped. The ongoing “joke” was a doctor sexually manipulating and coercing a young woman interviewing to be his secretary. Using his power to get her to undress when she doesn’t want to. Then when a senior doctor arrives to examine his practice and finds the naked woman, he lies and tells him she is one of his mental patients to avoid accountability. When she tries to protest she is then sectioned by the senior doctor who begins asking her immediately if she enjoyed her father sexually abusing her and when she says he didn’t abuse her at all he tells her he did and she just has to admit it to herself. This is where I stopped. There's a mind-set to Joe Orton's work that makes me think he died at exactly the right time. I suspect the novelty of his plays wouldn't have lasted much beyond his three great pieces, Entertaining Mr Sloane, Loot and What The Butler Saw, all peopled with grotesques, filled with stylised language and peppered with Orton's biting, satiric but ultimately challenging and uncomfortable wit. The last of these - What The Butler Saw - is The Bench's latest performance and generally it's fine stuff. On 9 August 1967, Orton's lover Kenneth Halliwell bludgeoned 34-year-old Orton to death at his home in Islington, London, with a hammer and then committed suicide with an overdose of Nembutal tablets. Investigators determined that Halliwell died first, because Orton's body was still warm. Orton was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium, his coffin brought into the chapel to The Beatles song "A Day in the Life". Harold Pinter read the eulogy saying "He was a bloody marvellous writer." The original production, having toured briefly from January 1969, [2] opened in the West End at the Queen's Theatre on 5 March. Presented by Lewenstein-Delfont Productions Ltd and H. M. Tennent Ltd, it was directed by Robert Chetwyn and designed by Hutchinson Scott. [3] Cast

What The Butler Saw - Bloomsbury Publishing What The Butler Saw - Bloomsbury Publishing

Due to Peter Corrigan's sudden admission to hospital, Director Mark Wakeman at the last minute had to step into his shoes and play the part of Dr Prentice, and what an incredible job he did too. A superb performance and barely evident that he carried his script. His performance brilliantly illustrated the doctor's improbable dilemmas of incrimination and mistaken identity. Mention too for a relative newcomer to the company Sarah Parnell (Mrs Prentice) who was outstanding with her amusing air of aloof superiority in the face of such insanity alongside her seductive charms. Peter Woodward (Dr Rance) took on the challenging role of this virtually certifiable character! In the cinemas the 'Carry On' series was at its peak in the Talbot Rothwell scripted era (also the writer of the classic series 'Up Pompeii') proving that Britain's love of saucy humour and innuendo was strong. (The films were frequently in the top five box office films of the year and for several years were THE number one box office draw which is something often forgotten!) As well as all this we had 'That Was The Week That Was', 'Beyond the Fringe', 'Not Only But Also' and Spike Milligan's 'Q' series. Dr. Prentice tries to listen to Geraldine and ask the right questions. She tells him that she doesn’t know who her real parents are, and it’s always bothered her. Dr. Prentice thinks she’s had a terrible time, but he takes advantage of this. He tells her that she’s an ideal candidate for the job, but the interview has a few stages. Intrigued, Geraldine keeps listening. I don't usually read plays for fun. I love seeing plays, and I should do more of it, but reading them...it's sort of like being on a literary diet, where all you are offered to eat is tough lean meats and veggies. You eat them, and are still hungry. And because it's diet food, it all needs salt and barely tastes like anything.

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Peter Corrigan (reminiscent of a cross between Frankie Howerd and Simon Callow) was highly entertaining, blustering and leering his incorrigible way through the mayhem. Sarah Parnell was also excellent as his wife, the perfect 'straight woman' as his foil, showing great skill with visual humour and ideal timing. A revival at London's Royal Court Theatre, directed by Lindsay Anderson, opened in July 1975 and transferred to the Whitehall Theatre the following month. [4] Cast As a teenager, Orton found escape from his family situation by acting in local theater productions. In 1951, at the age of eighteen, Orton left Leicester to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. It was there that he met Kenneth Halliwell, an older and more sophisticated student who would become Orton's companion, collaborator, lover, and eventually his murderer. Halliwell encouraged Orton to begin writing, and the two co-authored several novels before Orton started writing on... In 1966, Orton began again to write a diary (something he had started earlier in life). These later chapters, whilst being a frank and open account of his life, are also well-crafted literary works. They record, among other things the difficulties he experienced in his relationship with Halliwell, but give no clue that the nature of his death at the age of 34, could have been foreseen. The facts of the matter are that in August 1967, Halliwell killed him by repeatedly hitting him about the head with a hammer. Halliwell then took his own life with an overdose and 2 lives and a promising career were brought to an untimely end.

What The Butler Saw - Bloomsbury Publishing

You may speak freely in front of me - I represent Her Majesty's government, your immediate superiors in madness."Thank you for continuing to support local theatre, without you we and groups like us would not be able to continue to bring the best in world theatre to the local stage. So keep on coming... and bring all your friends too!!!! I read this one only because of a set of pictures I ran across one day featuring an actor I admire, taken when he was very young and performing in this play. And I simply had to know what the hell was happening in this play for those pictures to be taken. The production was done in the days before YouTube; and anyway YouTube recordings of plays--especially whole plays-- are relatively rare. So the only choice I had was to read the thing, and miraculously I could do that through our library. Orton wrote Funeral Games from July to November 1966 for a 1967 Rediffusion series, The Seven Deadly Virtues, It dealt with charity--especially Christian charity—in a confusion of adultery and murder. Rediffusion did not use the play; instead, it was made as one of the first productions of the new ITV company Yorkshire Television, and broadcast on 26 August 1968. The audience reaction to Churchill's last stand was probably the most interesting feature of the first night. Joe Orton had to submit to the Lord Chancellor in his day, whereas Bench director Jo German can tie up the end of this modern production by invoking, without shame, the best traditions of classical comedy. "What the Butler Saw" continues tonight and tomorrow and from Tuesday to Saturday next week.

What The Butler Saw Written by Joe Orton - Bench Theatre What The Butler Saw Written by Joe Orton - Bench Theatre

After a number of unsuccessful minor works, Entertaining Mr Sloane was Orton's first major script but the play received mixed response when it opened in 1963. In later venues however, it was voted Best New British Play by Variety's London Critics, moved to Broadway and Orton had his first taste of major success. Our modern world has moved far beyond the ideas of sexuality explored in this play and our problems on that front are now much more complex. However, we struggle more than ever with the fine line between crazy and sane. Especially now when there's literally a pill for everything. The emphasis would have been there if were written today, and would have worked. Orton and Halliwell wrote a number of unsuccessful works together but achieved bizarre notoriety in 1962 when they were convicted and imprisoned for the seemingly innocuous crime of defacing library books. The court passed down a harsh, 6-month sentence for what was ostensibly a prank. However, in an age where homosexuality was still illegal, the fact that the prank included pasting semi-erotic pictures on to covers of what they considered to be 'very dull' books probably influenced the judiciary. Orton later commented that they had been persecuted harshly because they had been discovered to be gay men openly living together. Dr Prentice's clinic is also faced with a government inspection, led by Dr Rance, which reveals the chaos in the clinic. Dr Rance talks about how he will use the situation to develop a new book: "The final chapters of my book are knitting together: incest, buggery, outrageous women and strange love-cults catering for depraved appetites. All the fashionable bric-a-brac." A penis ("the missing parts of Sir Winston Churchill") is held aloft in the climactic scene. There was a further revival in 2012 at the Vaudeville Theatre, directed by Sean Foley, which ran from 16 May to 25 August. [10] CastAlso medical professionals taking advantage of their power is just too close to reality in the present.