Under the Doctor Closes after Five Weeks, 25 MarDate: 12 March 2001
Peter Tilbury's new farce Under the Doctor, starring Peter Davison and Anton Rodgers, has announced its early closure at the Comedy Theatre. It opened there on 22 February, following previews from 15 February, and had been booking up to 13 May 2001. It will now close on 25 March, after a run of just five weeks.
In an interview aired this weekend on BBC Radio 2, Davison blamed the show's demise on critics who failed to get the jokes despite being surrounded by the laughter of ordinary audience members. The comedy involves a group of lying philanderers, all of whom are caught out by their secrets - all, that is, except for the ever-resourceful Etienne.
Davison is best known as a television actor whose many series include Dr Who, All Creatures Great and Small, A Very Peculiar Practice, Jonathan Creek and At Home with the Braithwaites. His stage credits include The Last Yankee at the Duke of York's and, most recently, Chicago (playing Amos Hart) at the Adelphi.
Rodgers' many stage credits include How the Other Half Lives (tour), Time of My Life (Vaudeville) and Songbook (Globe and on Broadway), for which he won an Olivier award for Best Actor. Last year, he played PG Wodehouse in the touring production of Beyond a Joke, Roger Milner's controversial play about the novelist's allegedly treacherous Nazi sympathies. Rodgers has also appeared in more than twenty TV series and numerous dramas including Fresh Fields and Noah's Ark.
Under the Doctor is directed by Fiona Laird whose credits include the National's production of Oh What a Lovely War, Guys and Dolls and Frogs. She co-directed the National's Peter Pan, for which she also wrote the lyrics. Peter Tilbury is both a writer and actor. He won a BAFTA nomination for creating and writing the BBC TV series, Chef!, starring Lenny Henry.
- by Terri Paddock
