Northampton Royal and Derngate will this week present a 50th anniversary production of Alan Ayckbourn’s Mr Whatnot.
The play, Ayckbourn’s first to transfer to the West End, is described as a “wonderfully silly tale of havoc and mayhem”.
As part of the venue’s Comedy Gold season, Mr Whatnot “combines a tribute to the physical comedy of the silent movie era with the very British obsessions with class, cucumber sandwiches and bed-hopping”.
It features a naïve but highly imaginative piano tuner being summoned to the stately home of Lord and Lady Slingsby-Craddock.
A case of mistaken identity leads to an increasingly surreal series of encounters over a summer weekend of tennis matches and afternoon tea as Mr Whatnot attempts to win the affections of their debutante daughter Amanda.
The cast comprises Liz Crowther, Russell Dixon, Flick Ferdinando, Charles Hunt, George Keeler, Antonia Kinlay and Juanma Rodriguez.
Mr Whatnot is directed by Cal McCrystal, physical comedy director for the award-winning National Theatre production One Man, Two Guvnors.
Mr Whatnot takes to the Royal stage from Friday (15 March) until Saturday, 6 April.