What the Butler Saw
From: Friday, 4th May 2012
To: Saturday, 28 July 2012
Our Review: 
Your Reviews:
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Synopsis
Welcome to the madhouse, as Joe Orton's legendary 1967 comedy opens at the Vaudeville Theatre this spring. Starring Omid Djalili, Tim McInnerny, Samantha Bond and Georgia Moffett, What the Butler Saw is an insanely funny, full-throttle tour de farce. Hysterical one liners and outrageous twists collide, as the characters lose the plot, their wits, and their clothes.
When psychoanalyst Dr Prentice instructs his new secretary to undress, little does he expect to be interrupted by his wife, her blackmailing lover, a meddling government inspector and an inquisitive policeman. But hiding a naked woman is the least of his worries, as libidos run riot, identities are swapped and social decorum is buried. Madness and mayhem mock morality, and laughter reigns supreme. What the Butler Saw is the last and arguably the finest work of one of this nation's most celebrated playwrights. A gloriously witty and shockingly hilarious comedy, you'd be mad to miss it!
Omid Djalili is an award-winning British-Iranian actor/comedian. Not only acclaimed as one of Britain's funniest stand-up comedians, he has also featured in films including The Mummy, Gladiator, Spy Game, Mean Machine, Modigliani, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Casanova, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, The Love Guru, The Infidel and Sex and the City 2. On television, his credits include Small Potatoes, Dinutopia, Whoopi and The Omid Djalili Show.
Tim McInnerny is best known for playing Lord Percy and Captain Darling in four series of Blackadder. His stage roles include Hamlet at the National Theatre, Iago and Judge Brack at Shakespeare's Globe. His many film roles include Notting Hill, 101 Dalmatians and 102 Dalmatians, Casanova, Severance and Johnny English Reborn.
Samantha Bond returns to the West End where she was most recently seen in An Ideal Husband. Her other recent credits include Arcadia and Donkeys’ Years at the Comedy and King James readings at the National.On film, she is best known for portraying Miss Moneypenny in several of the James Bond films and has been seen on television playing Lady Rosamund Painswick in Downton Abbey and Angela in Outnumbered.
Georgia Moffett’s television roles include Doctor Who, White Van Man and Merlin. On stage, she has appeared in Total Eclipse at the Menier Chocolate Factory and Getting Through at the Royal Court.
Our Review:
Michael Coveney - 17 May 2012
Forget good clean fun: Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw is a hilarious, down and dirty farce of cross people and cross dressing in a lunatic asylum masquerading as a private clinic, where a job interview leads to a thwarted seduction and a knock-on series of catastrophes.
But as Sean Foley’s energetic production, very well designed by Alice Power, is at many pains to point out, the real joy of this 1969 classic resides in its jewelled dialogue, which is as witty and aphoristic as Oscar Wilde’s, and pushed to the limits of indecency.
“As in Wilde, the humour lies in the rhythm of extreme antithesis, surprise vocabulary and an air of drastic finality. The temptation, to which the cast mostly succumb, is to confuse thumping authority with a sly and undercutting wit, so that the hectic physical action - the slammin...
As in Wilde, the humour lies in the rhythm of extreme antithesis, surprise vocabulary and an air of drastic finality”
Latest User Review
Tel - 28 June 2012:
This could have been good, it had good energy and the physical elements of farce were all expertly done. However the director has made two major mistakes, he seems to have completely bowled over the amazing language and mind of Joe Orton, instead he seemingly said to his cast lets just motor boat through it, get the sex jokes right and we should be in the pub by ten. The second is the woeful mis casting of Omid Djalili. Regardless of whether he is not really an actor that doesnt matter, the point is that Dr Rance is only really funny if it is played completely straight, hence the original casting of Ralph Richardson. Here the character is played as a wild screaming maniac which simply loses everything interesting in the play. Misguided and not worth the ticket price....
Creative
Joe Orton (Author)
MJE Productions (Producer)
Sean Foley (Director)
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