A group of guests come to stay with the Stoatt family in the seaside town of Eden Bay for Christmas. They soon become involved with an impoverished concert performer whose innocent presence in the house leads to a series of misunderstandings.
Acting
Tom Walls and Ralph Lynn's perfectly timed double-takes and escalating panic.
Writing
Aldwych farce construction: one lie breeds twelve disasters.
Director
Tom Walls
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This is pure Aldwych farce, a specifically British theatrical tradition where middle-class propriety gets dismantled by coincidence and panic. Tom Walls and Ralph Lynn were the genre's gold standard.
Mary Brough was 68 here, playing her trademark battleaxe role she'd perfected in over a dozen Walls-Lynn collaborations. The house-as-pressure-cooker setting was their signature.
US
GB
