Casting has been announced for the smash-hit comedy Run For Your Wife written and directed by legendary farceur Ray Cooney at Sonning Mill.
Casting is announced for a new production of the classic 1980s British farce ‘Run for your Wife’, directed by its author, Ray Cooney, at The Mill at Sonning. ‘Run for your Wife’ will run from 3 October – 23 November, 2019.
John Smith is a happy London taxi driver, working shifts. But he has one little problem. He is married. Twice! He has one wife, Mary, in Wimbledon. And another wife, Barbara, in Streatham. John keeps to a rigorous schedule so that never the twain shall meet. Everyone is blissfully happy – especially John Smith! One day, gallantly intervening in a mugging, he is taken to hospital with concussion. The police become involved. John panics and enlists the help of neighbour Stanley. Bad choice! Stanley is shambolic, disorganised and when it comes to conniving – clueless! The hapless duo embark on a series of wildly implausible explanations. The more they lie, the deeper the hole they dig, and the more the situation all starts to go horribly but riotously wrong.
Nick Wilton (John Smith) has appeared in 11 productions at The Mill at Sonning going back to 2005 and ‘Caught in the Net’ – also written and directed by Ray Cooney. He last appeared at The Mill in Ray Cooney’s ‘It Runs in the Family’.
Jeffrey Holland (Stanley) is best known from his TV appearances as comic Spike Dixon in 9 series of ‘Hi-De-Hi’, as the stuffy footman James Twelvetrees in 4 series of the hugely successful ‘You Rang M’Lord?’ and as Mr Parkin the stationmaster in ‘Oh, Dr. Beeching!’.
The rest of the cast features Judy Buxton, Elizabeth Elvin, Michelle Morris, Delme Thomas and David Warwick. The Set Designer is Jackie Dougan.
Ray Cooney began to act in 1946, appearing in many of the Whitehall farces of Brian Rix throughout the 1950s and 1960s. He has had 17 of his plays performed in the West End. ‘Run for Your Wife’ opened in 1983 at the Shaftesbury Theatre with Richard Briers and Bernard Cribbins in the lead roles and ran for 9 years in the West End. A South Korean production, retitled ‘Liar’, has enjoed an open-ended run in Seoul since 1998, and is considered one of the most successful performances in Korean theatre history. Its sequel, ‘Caught in the Net’, retitled ‘Liar 2’ has run in Seoul since 2004.
Set majestically on the banks of the River Thames, The Mill at Sonning Theatre is celebrating more than 30 years of entertainment. Uniquely, as the only dinner theatre in the United Kingdom, it has gained unrivalled praise both nationally and internationally. All tickets include a delicious two-course meal in the restaurant before the show.
