Habeas Corpus (play)

Habeas Corpus is a stage comedy in two acts by the English author Alan Bennett. It was first performed at the Lyric Theatre in London on 10 May 1973, with Alec Guinness in the central role. It ran, with cast changes, until 10 August 1974. The Broadway production that followed was less successful, running for less than three months. The play has been revived several times since then, in London and elsewhere.

The action revolves around the (generally) thwarted libidos of the principal characters. The title of the play is an old legal term habeas corpus, which translates from Latin as "you shall have the body".

Having made his reputation as a co-writer of and performer in Beyond the Fringe, Bennett turned to writing full-length plays. Habeas Corpus was his third to be staged in the West End. It followed Forty Years On (1968) and Getting On (1971), which were described by the critic Michael Billington as "two elegiac comedies about the decline of England". In the new play Bennett's comedy became farcical: Billington called it "a gorgeously vulgar but densely plotted farce".

Directed by Ronald Eyre, designed by Derek Cousins; music by Carl Davis. In February 1974 Robert Hardy succeeded Guinness as Dr Wicksteed, and the author took over the role of Mrs Swabb.

The action takes place in and around the Wicksteeds' house in Hove, on the south coast of England.

Mrs Swabb, who combines the functions of cleaner and all-knowing Fate, introduces the main characters. Wicksteed is 53, has an eye for the ladies and lacks ambition; his wife, Muriel, is a more assertive figure; their son, Dennis, is a wimpish hypochondriac, frustrated at his lack of a girlfriend; Connie is a flat-chested spinster who secretly longs to be sexually alluring; Sir Percy Shorter, President of the British Medical Association, was once Muriel's sweetheart and he bears a grudge against Wicksteed for cutting him out; Lady Rumpers is a returning expatriate, concerned for the purity of her beautiful daughter Felicity; Canon Throbbing is anxious to abandon his celibate state, which he finds a strain to keep up.

...
Wikipedia