WHAT THE BUTLER SAW
Hampstead

WHAT The Butler Saw sparked controversy in its first performance at the Queen’s Theatre in 1969.
In the programme notes Hayward Morse, one of the actors from the original production, tells how an indignant audience heckled in disbelief.
The theatrical establishment were yet to take on board that the times they were a-changin’.
Orton’s characters explore a cross-dressing fantasy in the very 1960s set of Dr Prentice’s surgery, except for Dr Rance (Malcolm Sinclair), who hails from the Department of Madness and tries to confine each of them in straight-jackets. But in Orton’s world, people are anything but straight.
Complete with a policeman’s quest for Winston Churchill’s private parts, you can see how this mischievous romp would have caused such outrage. But today the play is considered the classic British farce.
Thanks to the excellent cast, Orton’s wit bites just as sharply in this revival. No one – whether celibate prude or in cool adolescence – will withhold their laughter. What is so interesting about reviving what appears to be a period drama is that we are made to think about then and now.
Today’s audience, is made up of the 1960s generation and their offspring, will find Orton’s rendering of free love, incest, cross-dressing and mockery of religion, government and monarchy quite standard.
Earlier audiences would have spluttered in indignation at Orton’s mockery of traditional beliefs, the cross section might well have been more accepting of the golliwog gags and underlying misogyny.
Who can say how the play will be received in 40 years’ time? All good theatre stands the test of time in this way – when its horizons are not visible from the outset.
An inspired choice that breaks the Hampstead Theatre’s long run of new writing and reminds us that although it may feel like we are dumbing-down, we are progressing too.

Until August 20
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