Rookery Nook (play)

Rookery Nook is a farce by the English playwright Ben Travers based on his own 1923 novel. It was first given at the Aldwych Theatre, London, the third in the series of twelve Aldwych farces presented by the actor-manager Tom Walls at the theatre between 1923 and 1933. Several of the actors formed a regular core cast for the Aldwych farces. The play depicts the complications that ensue when a young woman, dressed in pyjamas, seeks refuge from her bullying stepfather at a country house in the middle of the night.

The play was first performed in 1926 at the Aldwych Theatre in London, the third of the Aldwych farces, and ran for 409 performances. In 1930 Walls directed a filmed version of the play, with most of the same performers, and the piece has been revived and adapted as a musical.

The actor-manager Tom Walls, initially together with Leslie Henson, produced the series of Aldwych farces, nearly all written by Ben Travers, starring Walls and his co-star Ralph Lynn, who specialised in playing "silly ass" characters. Walls assembled a regular company of actors to fill the supporting roles. For the first few productions, the company included Robertson Hare, as a figure of put-upon respectability; Mary Brough in eccentric old lady roles; Ethel Coleridge as the severe voice of authority, Winifred Shotter as the sprightly young female lead; and the saturnine Gordon James.

Walls and his team had already enjoyed two substantial hits at the Aldwych, with It Pays to Advertise (1923), which had run for 598 performances, and A Cuckoo in the Nest (1925, 376 performances).Rookery Nook, Travers's second playscript for the company, was based on a farcical novel he had published three years earlier.

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