Future Production Ideas

“Fishing for Clues” (5M, 5F; comedy, whodunnit)

Full-length, wryly comic whodunnit. Single country house set. Contains mild swearing and hanky-panky.

When Lady Rosemary Huntley brings a new gentleman friend home on the evening of a talk given by prominent Member of Parliament, Ewart Stewart, little does she imagine that the gentleman friend is not long for this world and that the Foreign Office and some offshoot of the KGB will soon be in attendance, along with the ever-enthusiastic PC Pendlebury and the less than enthusiastic Inspector Trench, unimpressed by having his fishing holiday interrupted. Trench is determined to get back to the river bank as soon as possible despite finding himself having to sort through a diverse cast of characters all of whom had motives for committing the deadly deed.

“Fishing for Clues” on lazybee scripts

“The Sharp End” (6M, 6F; farce)

Full length farce in four acts. Single drawing room set (time to bring out the French Windows again).

The Hillcrest Estate is to host a lavish trade function. Lady Hillcrest isn’t convinced that it’s a good idea despite the efforts of event manager Matthew Sharp and his assistant, Elaine. Fortunately Lady Hillcrest has other things on her mind, principally son and heir Tarquin’s continued inability to acquire a bride to carry on the family line. Personal stylist Juste Valadier is called in to turn Tarquin into a more attractive proposition. Also in attendance is a sinister Eastern European hit-man seeking out his victim and willing to eliminate anyone in his way. Add to the mix the Finneran family and blunt businessman, Norman Arbuthnot and a successful event seems a rather distant possibility…

“The Sharp End” on lazybee scripts

“Sleighed to Death” (Sergeant Pratt prequel) (4M, 4F; comedy)

Set: Single interior. Drawing room of a country manor house, 1930s.

The play introduces Pratt on his very first murder case, when he was still a humble Police Sergeant.

It is Christmas Eve and Pratt, together with his unfortunate assistant, Constable Mary Potter, is on a fund-raising mission with his magic show. When they perform at a fine old country house they suddenly find themselves at the centre of a family get-together which is rapidly turning nasty and rather violent! Determined to make a name for himself, Pratt enthusiastically sets about solving an attempted murder, with the usual calamitous results!

Sleighed to Death

“Out of Focus” (4M, 5F; comedy)

Set: Single interior. Church Hall, present day.

An unfortunate over-booking of the Church Hall results in a gathering of a wonderful mix of local characters, ranging from Evonne, the nervous Vicar’s wife, to Leonard, a man intent on delivering a talk on steam locomotives to anyone who will listen!

Eventually they all unite to produce a pantomime but, as rehearsals proceed, alliances are forged and switched as the opening night looms. Events culminate backstage after the final performance.

Out of Focus

“Third Week in August” (2M, 4F; comedy)

Single exterior. Caravan Site, present day.

When Sue decides to try a ‘get away from everybody’ caravan holiday, little does she realise that she’s booked into the caravan site from hell. She is soon taken under the wing of expert but inadequate caravaner, Neville … that’s when he’s not engaged in battle with his wife or trying to cope with his difficult sister-in-law.

Matters become complicated with the arrival of the enthusiastic Tony and his complaining girlfriend, Jenny. When Neville decides that a communal barbecue is the order of the day, things really start to hot up!
If you’ve ever been near a caravan site, you’ll recognise them all.

Third Week in August

“And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie (8M, 3F; thriller)

Full Length Play, Drama, Adaptations (Literature), Mystery/Thriller, interior set

Ten guilty strangers are trapped on an island. One by one they are accused of murder; one by one they start to die. In this superlative mystery comedy statuettes of little soldier boys on the mantel of a house on an island off the coast of Devon fall to the floor and break one by one as those in the house succumb to a diabolical avenger. A nursery rhyme tells how each of the ten “soldiers” met his death until there were none. Eight guests who have never met each other or their apparently absent host and hostess are lured to the island and, along with the two house servants, marooned. A mysterious voice accuses each of having gotten away with murder and then one drops dead – poisoned. One down and nine to go!

And Then There Were None

“Black Comedy” by Peter Shaffer (5M; 3F; Comedy)

Lovesick and desperate, sculptor Brindsley Miller has embellished his apartment with furniture and objects d’arte “borrowed” from the absent antique collector next-door, hoping to impress his fiancée’s pompous father and a wealthy art dealer.

The fussy neighbor, Harold Gorringe, returns just as a blown fuse plunges the apartment into darkness and Brindsley is revealed. Unexpected guests, aging spinsters, errant phone cords, and other snares impede his frantic attempts to return the purloined items before light is restored.

Black Comedy

“Boeing Boeing” by Marc Camoletti, translated by Beverly Cross & Francis Evans (2M, 4F; farce)

This 1960’s French farce adapted for the English-speaking stage features self-styled Parisian lothario Bernard, who has Italian, German, and American fiancees, each beautiful airline hostesses with frequent “layovers”. He keeps “one up, one down and one pending” until unexpected schedule changes bring all three to Paris and Bernard’s apartment at the same time.

Boeing Boeing

“Eating Out” by Roger Hodge (6M, 4F; comedy)

Full-length comedy play in three acts, with one split set. Contains mild swearing.

Minimum Male roles = 6. Minimum Female roles = 4. Minimum total with doubling = 10. Minimum total without doubling = 20. No chorus. Minimum number of cast is male 4, female 6 = 10. There is the opportunity for extras. The parts of Dennis and Donald must be played by the same actor. The parts of Jade and Jane must be played by the same actor.

Two couples encounter each other in a café at a stately home where a pompous gentleman’s dignity is bruised. One of those couples meets another couple in a French restaurant in the suburbs where love first blossoms. All three couples visit the same Greek island and find themselves together in a taverna, where embarrassments of the previous encounters are brought to the table and mayhem reigns as their hotel burns down.

Eating Out

“Hobson’s Choice” by Harold Brighouse (7M, 5F; comedy)

Full Length Play, Comedy

The youngest daughters of curmudgeonly bootmaker Hobson are anxious to marry and have eligible suitors who must wait until eldest daughter, practical-minded Maggie is promised in marriage. Maggie, however has other plans which include freedom from her father’s tyranny, a business and husband of her own. Her choice: Hobson’s shy apprentice Will Mossop.

Hobson’s Choice

“It’s On, It’s Off” by Ray Lawrence (2M, 4F; farce)

A tight, funny farce in two acts. Single (living room) set.

It’s two days before Tina Humphrey’s wedding and her parents, Gerald and Daphne, are expecting their daughter’s future mother-in-law for dinner. However, with infidelity, illegitimate children and a case of mistaken identity, all Daphne really wants to know is whether it’s on or it’s off!

It’s On, It’s Off

“Nobody’s Perfect” by Simon Williams (2M, 2F; comedy)

‘Love Is All Around’ is a feminist publishing house where Harriet Copeland is running a competition to find new romantic fiction; their motto is ‘For Women By Women’. To avoid this gender bias, Leonard Loftus is forced to submit his novel under a female pseudonym. So when Myrtle Banbury wins the first prize, Leonard begins to have a major problem. He is a bashful statistician lumbered with a spectacular alter ago. With domestic complications from his wayward daughter Dee Dee and Gus, his rascally old father, Leonard tries frantically to keep up the charade of Myrtle. His problems are made worse when he falls hopelessly in love with Harriet. He is a worried man in the guise of a carefree woman. The happy ending is not going to be easy. In high heels and lipstick our hero is caught in a hilarious dilemma of cross-dressing and cross-purposes.

Nobody’s Perfect

“One Man, Two Guvnors” by Richard Bean (6M, 3F + extras M or F; comedy/farce)

Comedy / farce, interior sets, Brighton 1960s

Fired from his skiffle band, Francis Henshall becomes minder to Roscoe Crabbe, a small time East End hood, now in Brighton to collect £6,000 from the dad of his fiancee. But Roscoe is really his sister Rachel posing as her own dead brother, who has been killed by her boyfriend Stanley Stubbers.

Holed up at The Cricketers Arms, the permanently ravenous Francis spots the chance of an extra meal ticket and takes a second job with one Stanley Stubbers, who is hiding from the police and waiting to be reunited with Rachel. To prevent discovery, Francis must keep his two guvnors apart. Simple.

Based on the classic Italian comedy The Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni, in this new English version by prizewinning playwright Richard Bean, sex, food and money are high on the agenda.

One Man, Two Guvnors
(performing licence also available from United Agents)

“Play On!” by Rick Abbot (3M, 7F; comedy)

Full Length Play, Comedy

Perfect for any performing group, this is the hilarious story of a theater group trying desperately to put on a play in spite of maddening interference from a haughty author who keeps revising the script. Act I is a rehearsal of the dreadful show, Act II is the near disastrous dress rehearsal, and the final act is the actual performance in which anything that can go wrong does. When the author decides to give a speech on the state of the modern theatre during the curtain calls, the audience is treated to a madcap climax to a thoroughly hilarious romp. Even the sound effects reap their share of laughter.

Play On!

“Relatively Speaking” by Alan Ayckbourn (2M, 2F; comedy)

Full length comedy.

Greg and Ginny find themselves most compatible but she is determined to be off today, against his wishes. She insists she is going to see her parents. Well, Greg just bets he beats her to that address, and he does so. The “parents” do not at first understand him correctly; for Ginny’s parents are really in Australia, and she has come not to visit parents but to tell her former employer and lover that all is over between them: she is going to marry Greg. The “father” finds himself trapped between the two women, and has to play the role of father. But he does not give up easily. He makes a deal with Greg to take his daughter on a tour of the continent as a wedding present. It is at this point that “mother” is given the old pair of slippers left under Ginny’s bed by her “father,” and begins to put two and two together. After the lovers leave and the “parents” are again alone, “father” discovers the slippers, staunchly declares they are not his, and begins to inquire what his wife is doing with the slippers of another man. But this is one secret “mother” will not divulge.

Relatively Speaking

“Rookery Nook” by Ben Travers (5M, 6F; comedy)

Comedy, interior sets, 1920s

Gerald rents Rookery Nook where his wife, Clara, will join him later. He is agreeably surprised by a pretty stranger called Rhoda who comes running to him for protection against her irascible German stepfather. Gerald allows her to stay in one of the bedrooms but as she is clad only in pyjamas, it is vital to conceal her presence from nosy neighbours. Rhoda gets herself some clothes just in time before Clara arrives but Gerald has some difficulty in convincing Clara of his innocence.

Rookery Nook

“Run For Your Wife” by Ray Cooney (6M, 2F; farce)

Farce, Contemporary, Composite setting: two living-rooms

This superb example of the British farce had audiences rolling in the aisles in London and New York! A taxi driver gets away with having two wives in different areas of London because of his irregular working schedule. Complication is piled upon complication as the cabby tries to keep his double life from exploding.

Run For Your Wife

“Thark” by Ben Travers (6M, 5F; farce)

Farce, interior sets, 1920s

Sir Hector Benbow invites Cherry, a pretty shop assistant, to dine. Arriving home, he finds not only Cherry but Mrs Frush, to whom he has rented Thark, his niece’s Norfolk house. Mrs Frush complains Thark is haunted. To distract Lady Benbow’s attention from Cherry, he suggests everyone go to Thark, which lives up to its spine-chilling reputation. A wild night, sinister butler and plethora of romantic mix-ups add to the lively proceedings.

Thark

“The God of Carnage” by Yasmina Reza, translated by Christopher Hampton (2M, 2F; dramatic comedy)

What happens when two sets of parents meet up to deal with the unruly behaviour of their children? A calm and rational debate between grown-ups about the need to teach kids how to behave properly? Or a hysterical night of name-calling, tantrums and tears before bedtime? Boys will be boys, but the adults are usually worse – much worse.

The God of Carnage

“The Ladykillers” by Graham Linehan (6M, 2F; comedy)

Comedy, interior set, 1950s

The Ladykillers is a classic black comedy; a sweet little old lady, alone in her house, is pitted against a gang of criminal misfits who will stop at nothing.
Posing as amateur musicians, Professor Marcus and his gang rent rooms in the lopsided house of sweet but strict Mrs Wilberforce. The villains plot to involve her, unwittingly, in Marcus’ brilliantly conceived heist job. The police are left stumped but Mrs Wilberforce becomes wise to their ruse and Marcus concludes that there is only one way to keep the old lady quiet. With only her parrot, General Gordon, to help her, Mrs Wilberforce is alone with five desperate men. But who will be forced to face the music?

The Ladykillers

Peter James’ “The Perfect Murder” adapted for the stage by Shaun McKenna (3M, 2F; thriller)

Full Length Play, Thriller, Interior Set.

Victor Smiley and his wife Joan have been married for a long time. But their marriage has reached crisis point and Victor has decided that there is only one way to get Joan out of his life forever… but he’s about to get a nasty surprise. As a young Detective Roy Grace starts to investigate his very first homicide case, dark forces intervene and he begins to realise that nothing is quite as it seems…

Have you ever wondered how to commit the perfect murder? This highly entertaining dark comedy thriller might just be your answer!

The Perfect Murder