The Whitehall farces were a series of five long-running comic stage plays at the Whitehall Theatre in London, presented by the actor-manager Brian Rix, in the 1950s and 1960s. They were in the low comedy tradition of British farce, following the Aldwych farces, which played at the Aldwych Theatre between 1924 and 1933. [1]
The five farces were as follows:
| Title | Author | Premiere | Closed | Performances |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reluctant Heroes | Colin Morris | 12 September 1950 [2] | 24 July 1954 [3] | 1,610 [4] |
| Dry Rot | John Chapman | 31 August 1954 [5] | 15 March 1958 [6] | 1,475 [4] |
| Simple Spymen | John Chapman | 19 March 1958 [7] | 29 July 1961 [8] | 1,403 [4] |
| One For the Pot | Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton | 2 August 1961 [9] | 4 July 1964 [10] | ~1,210 |
| Chase Me, Comrade | Ray Cooney | 15 July 1964 [11] | 21 May 1966 [12] | ~765 |
Rix built a company of regular players who appeared in some or all of these shows. They included Leo Franklyn, Larry Noble, Dennis Ramsden and Derek Royle, [13] and members of Rix's family: his wife, Elspet Gray, his sister, Sheila Mercier and his brother-in-law, Peter Mercier. Others who appeared in one or more of the Whitehall farces include Terry Scott [14] and Andrew Sachs. [15] Rix starred in all five plays, in a range of roles: a "gormless recruit" to the army in Reluctant Heroes; [16] a timidly crooked bookie's runner in Dry Rot; [17] a street musician recruited as a secret agent in Simple Spymen; [18] four identical brothers in One For the Pot; [19] and a harassed civil servant in Chase Me, Comrade. [20] From Dry Rot onwards, Rix and his authors developed a double act for the Rix characters and those played by Leo Franklyn, in which the two performers played off one another rather as Ralph Lynn and Tom Walls had done in the Aldwych farces of the previous generation. [21]
Although the five plays constituting the Whitehall farces had long runs and the theatres usually had full houses, the majority of London critics were dismissive of them. Writing in the Financial Times in 1980, Michael Coveney commented: "A tradition of critical snobbery has grown up around these plays, partly because they were so blatantly popular but chiefly because of our conviction that farce, unless written by a Frenchman, is an inferior theatrical species. Once the National Theatre has done its duty by Priestley and Rattigan and others teetering on the brink of theatrical respectability I suggest they employ Mr. Rix … to investigate the ignored riches of English farce between Travers and Ayckbourn." [22] Some London critics of the 1950s and 1960s did not disregard them, including Harold Hobson, Ronald Bryden, J. W. Lambert and Alan Dent. [23]
In addition to the five long-running farces, Rix presented a series of more than eighty one-off televised comedies, some of them farces, for the BBC. The first was transmitted live from the Whitehall Theatre in January 1956. [24] There were also film versions of Reluctant Heroes (1951), Dry Rot (1956), and Chase Me, Comrade, which was renamed Not Now, Comrade (1976). [25] [26] [27] [28]
In 1966, having been unable to secure the lease of the Whitehall Theatre, Rix took his company on tour in Chase Me, Comrade and Bang, Bang Beirut (later retitled Stand By Your Bedouin), by Cooney and Hilton. [29] Later productions by the Rix company at the Garrick Theatre and elsewhere included Uproar in the House (1967), by Anthony Marriott and Alistair Foot; Let Sleeping Wives Lie (also 1967) by Harold Brooke and Kay Bannerman; She's Done It Again (1969), by Michael Pertwee; Don't Just Lie There, Say Something (Pertwee, 1971); and A Bit Between the Teeth (Pertwee, 1974). According to Leslie Smith in a study of modern British farce, although some of the Rix productions after Chase Me, Comrade achieved substantial success, none of them had the conspicuously long runs of the five Whitehall farces. [30] In 1976, Rix returned to the Whitehall with Fringe Benefits (Donald Churchill and Cooney) which ran until 1977 when he retired from the stage.
Brian Norman Roger Rix, Baron Rix, was an English actor-manager, who produced a record-breaking sequence of long-running farces on the London stage, including Dry Rot, Simple Spymen and One for the Pot. His one-night TV shows made him the joint-highest paid star on the BBC. He often worked with his wife Elspet Gray and sister Sheila Mercier, who became the matriarch in Emmerdale Farm.
The Shaftesbury Theatre is a West End theatre, located in Shaftesbury Avenue, in the London Borough of Camden. It opened in 1911 as the New Prince's Theatre, with a capacity of 2,500. The current capacity is 1,416. The title "Shaftesbury Theatre" belonged to another theatre lower down the avenue between 1888 and 1941. The Prince's adopted the name in 1963.
The Lyric Theatre is a West End theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. It was built for the producer Henry Leslie, who financed it from the profits of the light opera hit, Dorothy, which he transferred from its original venue to open the new theatre on 17 December 1888.
Sheila Betty Mercier was an English actress, of stage and television, best known for playing Annie Sugden in the soap opera Emmerdale for over 20 years, from the programme's first episode in 1972 until the mid-1990s, with a guest return in 2009.
Raymond George Alfred Cooney OBE is an English playwright, actor, and director.
Trafalgar Theatre is a West End theatre in Whitehall, near Trafalgar Square, in the City of Westminster, London. The Grade II listed building was built in 1930 with interiors in the Art Deco style as the Whitehall Theatre; it regularly staged comedies and revues. It was converted into a television and radio studio in the 1990s, before returning to theatrical use in 2004 as Trafalgar Studios, the name it bore until 2020, with the auditorium converted to two studio spaces. It re-opened in 2021 following a major multi-million pound project to reinstate it to its original single-auditorium design.
John Slater was an English character actor who usually portrayed lugubrious, amiable cockney types.
Run for Your Wife is a 1983 comedy play by Ray Cooney.
Larry Noble was a stage comedian and actor best known for starring in the Whitehall farces with Brian Rix. He starred in the original production of Reluctant Heroes and as the chirpy French jockey in Dry Rot. On television, he made guest appearances in Last of the Summer Wine in 1975 and Blake's 7 in 1981. He died on 9 September 1993, aged 78.
Not Now, Comrade is a 1976 British comedy film directed by Ray Cooney and starring Leslie Phillips, Windsor Davies, Don Estelle and Ian Lavender. It was shot at Elstree studios as the sequel to Not Now, Darling (1973), and was the second in an intended series of "Not Now" films, with Not Now, Prime Minister pencilled in as a follow-up. But box office returns for this film, unlike those of its predecessor, were disappointing. It was the only feature film directed by Harold Snoad.
Dry Rot is a 1956 British comedy film directed by Maurice Elvey, and starring Ronald Shiner, Brian Rix, Peggy Mount, and Sid James. The screenplay is by John Chapman, adapted from his 1954 Whitehall farce of the same name.
John Roy Chapman was a British actor, playwright and screenwriter, known for his collaborations with Ray Cooney.
Colin Morris was a British playwright, screenwriter and actor. His best known work was the screen version of Reluctant Heroes (1952) based on his own hit play of the same title. As an actor, he appeared in the 1957 film The Silken Affair. Reluctant Heroes premiered in 1950 at the Whitehall Theatre, and was the first of the Brian Rix company's Whitehall farces.
Hazel Douglas was an English actress. She portrayed Bathilda Bagshot in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1.
Reluctant Heroes is a 1952 British comedy film directed by Jack Raymond and starring Ronald Shiner, Derek Farr and Christine Norden. It is based on the popular farce of the same title by Colin Morris. The play, which had its West End premiere at the Whitehall Theatre in September 1950, was the first of the Brian Rix company's Whitehall farces. The film was shot at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith in West London. Its sets were designed by the art director Wilfred Arnold.
Nicholas Wilton is an English actor and scriptwriter. He has appeared as Mr Lister in the BBC soap opera EastEnders as a recurring character; he has also appeared in Carrott's Lib and Jackanory.
Leo Franklyn was an English actor. Much of his early career was in Edwardian musical comedy; in his later career he was chiefly associated with farce.
Simple Spymen is a farce by the English playwright John Chapman. The story concerns two street musicians who are mistakenly appointed by negligent army officers to act as bodyguards to protect a scientist from assassination by a foreign spy.
The Aldwych farces were a series of twelve stage farces presented at the Aldwych Theatre, London, nearly continuously from 1923 to 1933. All but three of them were written by Ben Travers. They incorporate and develop British low comedy styles, combined with clever word-play. The plays were presented by the actor-manager Tom Walls and starred Walls and Ralph Lynn, supported by a regular company that included Robertson Hare, Mary Brough, Winifred Shotter, Ethel Coleridge, and Gordon James.
She's Done It Again is a 1969 comedy play by the British writer Michael Pertwee. A farce, it ran at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End from 15 October 1969 to 23 May 1970. This marked a shorter run than any of the Whitehall farces that sar Brian Rix had appeared in, although it received better reviews. Aside from Rix the London cast included Margaret Nolan, Anna Dawson, Leo Franklyn, Derek Royle, Robert Dorning, Michael Kilgarriff, Hazel Douglas and Anthony Sharp.
