Tale of a harrassed cabbie

The Rustington Players bring to the stage the hilarious tale of the harrassed cabbie with two wives.

They are staging the Ray Cooney farce Run For Your Wife at the at The Woodlands Centre, Rustington, from Wednesday, July 13-Saturday, July 16, directed by Lin Jones.

Lin said: “This is the story of a London taxi driver, John Smith (Simon Birks) who foolishly finds himself with two wives; Barbara Smith (Justine Richardson) and Mary Smith (Marielle Cottee)!

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“With a very tight schedule he has carefully maintained this precarious state of affairs for the past three years, but when circumstances conspire to spoil such a happy if exhausting arrangement, the consequences lead to hilarious situations involving his frustrated friend from the flat upstairs, Stanley Gardner (Paul Jones), two prying policemen DS Troughton (Dave Griffin) and DS Porterhouse (Derek Billington), a press reporter (Tim Napier-Raikes) and a flamboyant neighbour, Bobby Franklyn (Colin Bolton), not to mention the two irate wives!

“Run For Your Wife first opened in London in 1983, followed by a New York production where it was described by the critics as British comedy at its best. Almost 30 years on it is still constantly revived and toured all over the world. Having been translated into over 30 different languages publishers Samuel French have estimated that they have released the stage rights to over a thousand theatre companies throughout the world. And now the stage hit is making it onto the screen. Filming of Run For Your Wife the movie, starts next month starring Danny Dyer, Neil Morrissey, Denise Van Outen and Sarah Harding.”

Lin added: “Having seen this very clever farce performed on the professional stage in the 80s, 90s and the 00s, and having staged it myself back in 1996, I guess you could say I am a fan!

“Having had such a great time with it, I decided to email Ray Cooney recently to wish him luck on the forthcoming film and to tell him about this Rustington Players production. He very kindly took the time to reply: “Hi Lin, Forgive hasty reply to your lovely email but I’m up to my eyes on the movie which we shoot in August. Have a fantastic production. Love to you all, Ray”

Tickets on the door.