What the Butler Saw

What the Butler Saw, Criterion Theatre, 2005

Cast: Jonathan Coy, Joanna Page, Belinda Lang, Geoff Breton, Malcolm Sinclair, Huw Higginson

Writer: Joe Orton

Director: David Grindley

This is probably the only production of this play I've seen although it's my favourite of Orton's work. There was a brilliant version on television when I still lived at home starring Timothy West and Prunella Scales. There are so many reason to love Pru but my favourite memory of her is in that production, in a fake fur coat, telling her husband, "My uterine contractions have been bogus for some time!" It turns out I went to a screening of that at the BFI some years later, which I'd forgotten about. I wish they'd show it on TV again. All I seem to remember about this production is that it had sold so poorly that they closed the circle and I was upgraded to the stalls. I still think that Orton needs to be rested for a generation.