'Pass The Butler' by Eric Idle

Last evening we held a reading/audition for this play, scheduled to be Phoenix Theatre Inc's third production for 2010, opening 12 August. The reading went well and we have almost a full cast. (With 6 male characters ranging in age from 20s to 60s, it was always going to be tough). A few more phone calls/emails and we should be set to go with rehearsals early in June. Notwithstanding the antecedents of its author, this play is no elongated Pythonesque sketch - it is a carefully structured piece of satirical comedy, bordering on black farce, with a delightfully bizarre twist in the tail. It has a family of upper-class twits, a horny heiress, a dodgy politician, a body in a box, an intrusive reporter, a rabid police inspector, a kindly nanny and an epigrammatic butler, conveniently named 'Butler' - ironically, all the ingredients of a sure-fire crowd-pulling drawing-room drama. While I have a personal commitment to the advancement of Australian writers ahead of others, I am also intent on broadening the experience of 'Team Phoenix' and testing the response of our 'target audience' to a catchy title and a known-name playwright. ("Eric Idle" even sounds a bit like "Oscar Wilde"). Besides, this would be one of the funniest scripts of any origin I have ever read! Here's hoping it translates correspondingly to the stage!!