It Pays to Advertise

It Pays to Advertise is a farce by Roi Cooper Megrue and Walter Hackett. Described as "A Farcical Fact in Three Acts", the play depicts the idle son of a rich manufacturer setting up a spurious business in competition with his father.

It was first presented on the Broadway stage on 8 September 1914, at the Cohan Theatre and ran for nearly a year. The playwrights substantially rewrote the play for a new production in London by the actor-manager Tom Walls, at the Aldwych Theatre. This opened on 2 February 1924 and closed on 10 July 1925, a total of 598 performances. It was the first of a sequence of twelve "Aldwych farces" presented at the theatre until 1933, mostly original farces written by Ben Travers. By contrast with later plays in the series, in which Walls played worldly and sometimes shady characters, with Ralph Lynn as his naïve associate, in It Pays to Advertise Walls's character is upright and conventional, and Lynn is the manipulative schemer.

From the revised (London) version of the play.

Mary Grayson, secretary to the soap magnate, Sir Henry Martin, is awaiting the arrival of his son, Rodney. While she waits, the Comtesse de Beaurien is shown in, wishing to see Sir Henry. As she does not speak English, and Mary speaks no French, communication is difficult. Eventually having worked out that Mary is suggesting she should return at eight o'clock, the Comtesse leaves. Rodney enters. He is in love with Mary; she insists that he should seek his father's consent to their marriage. Sir Henry enters, in a bad temper, supposedly from an attack of gout. He asks Mary to leave, and when Rodney tells him of his desire to marry Mary he reacts with fierce hostility. He says that Mary is seeking to marry Rodney solely for his money, and to prove the point he announces that if they marry, Rodney will be disinherited. The young couple defy him. Rodney declares that he will set up in business. He goes upstairs to pack a bag before leaving his father's house. When he has gone it emerges that Sir Henry and Mary are in cahoots, seeking to drive the idle Rodney into earning a living for himself. Sir Henry and a business rival have bet a large sum on which of their sons will outshine the other in commerce. Mary assures Sir Henry that she is not in love with Rodney, and proposes to break off the engagement once he has got himself established in business.

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