''See How They Run'' is an English comedy in three acts by
Philip King. Its title is a line from the nursery rhyme "
Three Blind Mice
"Three Blind Mice" is an English-language nursery rhyme and musical round.I. Opie and P. Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 306. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number o ...
". It is considered a
farce for its tense comic situations and headlong humour, heavily playing on
mistaken identity
Mistaken identity is a defense in criminal law which claims the actual innocence of the criminal defendant, and attempts to undermine evidence of guilt by asserting that any eyewitness to the crime incorrectly thought that they saw the defenda ...
, doors, and vicars. In 1955 it was
adapted as a film starring
Roland Culver
Roland Joseph Culver, (31 August 1900 – 1 March 1984) was an English stage, film, and television actor.
Life and career
After Highgate School, he joined the Royal Air Force and served as a pilot from 1918 to 1919. After considering other c ...
.
Early production history
King wrote the first act in 1942 under the title ''Moon Madness'', with the final act completed in 1943. His play was first staged by
Henry Kendall at the
Peterborough Rep in 1944 prior to a British tour as an entertainment for the troops, under the auspices of
ENSA
The Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) was an organisation established in 1939 by Basil Dean and Leslie Henson to provide entertainment for British armed forces personnel during World War II. ENSA operated as part of the Navy, ...
.
Henry Kendall's production, re-cast and restaged, was then presented by producer Jack de Leon at his
Q Theatre
The Q Theatre was a British theatre located near Kew Bridge in Brentford, west London, which operated between 1924 and 1958. It was built on the site of the former Kew Bridge Studios.
The theatre, seating 490 in 25 rows with a central aisle, w ...
, close to Kew Bridge, as Christmas entertainment opening on 21 December 1944. It then transferred – with one change of cast – to the
Comedy Theatre
The Harold Pinter Theatre, known as the Comedy Theatre until 2011, , opening to rave reviews on 4 January 1945.
The cast included
Joan Hickson
Joan Bogle Hickson, OBE (5 August 1906 – 17 October 1998) was an English actress of theatre, film and television. She was known for her role as Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in the television series ''Miss Marple''. She also narrated a number ...
as the maid Ida (an actress new to comedy who had been acting at the Q Theatre since 1942) and starred Beryl Mason and George Gee as Penelope and Clive. It ran for 18 months at the Comedy, notching up 589 performances.
The West End opening night was not without its perils. Three 'doodle-bugs' (
V-1 flying bomb
The V-1 flying bomb (german: Vergeltungswaffe 1 "Vengeance Weapon 1") was an early cruise missile. Its official Ministry of Aviation (Nazi Germany), Reich Aviation Ministry () designation was Fi 103. It was also known to the Allies as the buz ...
s) exploded nearby. No-one budged until after the play was over, but Gee complained at the cast party that all three went off just as he was speaking his funniest lines.
Plot
The play is set in 1943 for the original (or shortly after the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
in the rewrite) in the living room of the
vicarage
A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of religion. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, parsonage, rectory or vicarage.
Function
A clergy house is typically ow ...
at the fictitious village of ''Merton-cum-Middlewick'' (merging various actual village names, such as
Merton and Middlewick, both in
Oxfordshire.
The lead character is Penelope Toop, former actress and now wife of the local
vicar
A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pre ...
, the Rev. Lionel Toop. The Toops employ Ida, a
Cockney
Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or ...
maid. Miss Skillon, a churchgoer of the parish and a scold, arrives on bicycle to gossip with the vicar and to complain about the latest 'outrages' that Penelope has caused. The vicar then leaves for the night, and an old friend of Penelope's,
Lance-Corporal
Lance corporal is a military rank, used by many armed forces worldwide, and also by some police forces and other uniformed organisations. It is below the rank of corporal, and is typically the lowest non-commissioned officer (NCO), usually equi ...
Clive Winton, stops by on a quick visit. To dodge army regulations, he changes from his uniform into Lionel's second-best suit, complete with a clerical 'dog-collar' to see a production of "
Private Lives
''Private Lives'' is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetu ...
" (a
Noël Coward play in which they had appeared together in their acting days), while pretending to be the visiting vicar Arthur Humphrey who is due to preach the Sunday
sermon
A sermon is a religious discourse or oration by a preacher, usually a member of clergy. Sermons address a scriptural, theological, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law, or behavior within both past and present contexts. ...
the next day.
Just before they set out, Penelope and Clive re-enact a fight scene from "Private Lives" and accidentally knock Miss Skillon (who has come back unannounced) unconscious. Miss Skillon, wrongly thinking she has seen Lionel fighting with Penelope, gets drunk on a bottle of cooking sherry and Ida hides her in the broom cupboard. Then Lionel, arriving back, is knocked silly by a German spy on the run, who takes the vicar's clothes as a disguise. To add to the confusion, both Penelope's uncle, the Bishop of Lax, and the real Humphrey unexpectedly show up early. Chaos quickly ensues, culminating in a cycle of running figures and mistaken identities. In the end, a
police sergeant
Sergeant (abbreviated to Sgt. and capitalized when used as a named person's title) is a rank in many uniformed organizations, principally military and policing forces. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and other uni ...
arrives in search of the spy to find four suspects, Lionel, Clive, Humphrey and the German, all dressed as clergy. No one can determine the identity of the spy (or anyone else for that matter) and the German is almost free when he is revealed and foiled by the quick work of Clive and Ida. The scene calms down as the sergeant leads the spy away and Humphrey leaves. Miss Skillon emerges from the closet, and she, the Bishop and Lionel demand an explanation. Penelope and Clive begin to explain in two-part harmony, getting up to the scene from "Private Lives," when Miss Skillon again manages to catch a blow in the face. She falls back into Ida's arms as the curtain falls.
Changes
*In the original, Clive is an English actor and former co-star of Penelope's, now conscripted into the British army – in the rewrite he is in the US Army.
*In the original, the prisoner is a German escapee from the local POW camp – in the rewrite, he is a captured Russian spy escaping from the nearby American base.
*In the original, Penelope speaks in
RP British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
– in the rewrite, she becomes an American.
Quotes
*"The only other bishop's niece I know is in the chorus at
The Windmill"
*"Darling, a woman with a bottom like that could say anything"
*"Sergeant, arrest most of these vicars"
*"You can't shoot me! I have diabetes!" (film version)
*"How about
The Wreck of the Hesperus?" "She's gone back to the cupboard"
Film
The play was made into a film in 1955. Directed by
Leslie Arliss and starred
Ronald Shiner
Ronald Alfred Shiner (8 June 1903 – 29 June 1966) was a British stand-up comedian and comedy actor whose career encompassed film, West End theatre and music hall.
Career Early life and career
When he was seventeen, Shiner joined the Royal Nor ...
as Clive (renamed Wally),
Greta Gynt
Greta Gynt (born Margrethe Woxholt; 15 November 1916 – 2 April 2000) was a Norwegian dancer and actress. She is remembered for her starring roles in the British classic films '' The Dark Eyes of London'', ''Mr. Emmanuel'', ''Take My Life'', '' ...
as Penelope and
Dora Bryan
Dora May Broadbent, (7 February 1923 – 23 July 2014), known as Dora Bryan, was a British actress of stage, film and television.[Alexander Doré
Alexander Joseph Doré (28 August 1923 – 16 April 2002) was a British actor, director and screenwriter. He was best known for his appearance as the First Spy in the 1968 film '' Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.''][Vaudeville Theatre
The Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on the Strand in the City of Westminster. As the name suggests, the theatre held mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. It opened in 1870 and was rebuilt twice, although each ...]
in July 1964, with a strong cast including the author Philip King in the role of The Bishop of Lax, but it ran for less than a month. More successfully, the play was revived by John David at the
Greenwich Theatre on 30 November 1978, winning especially good reviews for
Andrew Robertson
Andrew Henry Robertson (born 11 March 1994) is a Scottish professional footballer who plays as a left-back for club Liverpool and captains the Scotland national team.
Robertson began his senior career with Queen's Park in 2012 before joini ...
portraying The Reverend Arthur Humphrey as a
Robertson Hare
John Robertson Hare, OBE (17 December 1891 – 25 January 1979) was an English actor, who came to fame in the Aldwych farces. He is remembered by more recent audiences for his performances as the Archdeacon in the popular BBC sitcom, ''All Ga ...
lookalike, and played a busy Christmas and New Year season, closing in mid-January 1979.
In 1984, Ray Cooney directed a revival of Philip King
's farce "See How They Run,'' which opened at London's Shaftesbury Theatre on February 8, presented by the Theatre of Comedy. It had
Maureen Lipman
Dame Maureen Diane Lipman (born 10 May 1946) is an English actress, writer and comedian. She trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and her stage work has included appearances with the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespea ...
(Miss Skillion),
Royce Mills
Anthony Royce Mills (12 May 1942 – 21 May 2019) was an English television, stage and film actor.
He attended Eastbourne College, then studied fine art for five years and qualified as a theatre designer before attending the Guildhall School w ...
(Rev. Lionel Toop),
Liza Goddard
Louise Elizabeth Goddard (born 20 January 1950) professionally known as Liza Goddard, is an English television and stage actress, best known for her work in the 1970s and 1980s.
Early life
Goddard was born in Smethwick, Staffordshire.Before 1 ...
(Penelope Toop),
Carol Hawkins
Carol Hawkins (born 31 January 1949 in Barnet, Hertfordshire) is an English actress, best known for her various comic roles in numerous TV sitcoms and films in the 1970s and 1980s.
She played the roles of Sharon Eversleigh in the film of the t ...
(Ida),
Christopher Timothy
Christopher is the English version of a Europe-wide name derived from the Greek name Χριστόφορος (''Christophoros'' or '' Christoforos''). The constituent parts are Χριστός (''Christós''), "Christ" or "Anointed", and φέρει� ...
(Corporal Clive Winton),
Peter Blake (The Intruder),
Derek Nimmo
Derek Robert Nimmo (19 September 193024 February 1999) was an English character actor, producer and author. He is best remembered for his comedic upper class "silly ass" and clerical roles including Revd Mervyn Noote in the BBC1 sitcom ''Al ...
(Rev. Arthur Humphrey),
Michael Denison (Bishop of Lax) and
Bill Pertwee
William Desmond Anthony Pertwee, (21 July 1926 – 27 May 2013) was a British comedy actor. He played the role of Chief ARP Warden Hodges in the sitcom '' Dad's Army''.
Early life
Pertwee was born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, on 21 July 192 ...
(Sgt. Towers) in leading roles.
A Channel 4 90-minute adaptation broadcast at Christmas 1984, directed by Ray Cooney and Les Chatfield, starred Cooney's 1984 West End cast, including Ray Cooney as Police Sergeant.
The play was also revived on stage at the
Richmond Theatre
The present Richmond Theatre, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, is a British Victorian theatre located on Little Green, adjacent to Richmond Green. It opened on 18 September 1899 with a performance of ''As You Like It''. One of ...
, Surrey (28 February – 4 March 2006), and at the
Duchess Theatre
The Duchess Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, London, located in Catherine Street near Aldwych.
The theatre opened on 25 November 1929 and is one of the smallest West End theatres with a proscenium arch. It has 494 sea ...
, London (26 June – 28 October 2006) following a short national tour. The production was directed by
Douglas Hodge
Douglas Hodge is an English actor, director, and musician who has had an extensive career in theatre, as well as television and film where he has appeared in '' Robin Hood'' (2010), '' Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return'' and '' Diana'' (2013), '' ...
.
Hattie Morahan
Harriet Jane Morahan (born 7 October 1978) is an English actress. Her roles include Sister Clara in The Golden Compass (film), ''The Golden Compass'' (2007), Gale Benson in ''The Bank Job'' (2008), Alice in ''The Bletchley Circle'' (2012–2014 ...
starred as Penelope Toop in the touring production, the part later being taken by
Nancy Carroll
Nancy Carroll (born Ann Veronica Lahiff; November 19, 1903 – August 6, 1965) was an American actress. She started her career in Broadway musicals and then became an actress in sound films and was in many films from 1927 to 1938. She was t ...
for the West End, who played alongside her real-life husband
Jo Stone-Fewings
Jonathan Stone-Fewings (born 1967) is an English actor. He studied at Hereford College of Arts and at the Welsh College of Music and Drama, and began his career in 1989. He has been a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) since 1994. H ...
as Clive. The cast also included
Nicholas Rowe as the Reverend Toop,
Julie Legrand
Julie Legrand (born in Pitlochry, Scotland) is a British television, film, and stage actress best known for her role as Jeanette Dunkley on ''Footballers' Wives''. She has also guest starred in a wide variety of British television shows, as we ...
as Miss Skillon,
Nicholas Blane as Humphrey,
Natalie Grady as Ida,
Adrian Fear as the PoW, and
Chris MacDonnell as the Policeman.
For the Duchess Theatre run, the cast included
Tim Pigott-Smith
Timothy Peter Pigott-Smith, (13 May 1946 – 7 April 2017) was an English film and television actor and author. He was best known for his leading role as Ronald Merrick in the television drama series '' The Jewel in the Crown'', for which he wo ...
as The Bishop of Lax. The production received excellent notices.
2008 saw a revival at the
Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester
The Royal Exchange is a grade II listed building in Manchester, England. It is located in the city centre on the land bounded by St Ann's Square, Exchange Street, Market Street, Cross Street and Old Bank Street. The complex includes the Royal ...
(15 December 2008 – 24 January 2009) starring
Laura Rogers
Laura Rogers (born 10 March 1979) is a British actress from Carmarthen, Wales.Price, Karen (1 May 2010)Actress brings new meaning to ‘stage diving’ in Macbeth role ''Western Mail (Wales)''
Biography
Born in Carmarthen, Rogers grew up in n ...
as Penelope Toop and
Nick Caldecott as Reverend Toop.
In 2014 the play was revived in a UK touring production featuring short actors by
Warwick Davis
Warwick Ashley Davis (born 3 February 1970) is an English actor. He played the title character in ''Willow'' (1988) and the ''Leprechaun'' film series (1993–2003), several characters in the ''Star Wars'' film series (1983–2019), most nota ...
's Reduced Height Theatre Company.
References
External links
{{Commons category, See How They Run (play)
*London 2006 production
**Reviews in The Stag
an
(with images)
**Review of review
1945 plays
English plays
Plays about World War II
Fiction set in 1943