A crossword-featuring comedy by a playwright who was also an MP, spy and campaigner. And he wrote the dialogue for the first British talkie …
Clutterbuck was first performed at Wyndham’s Theatre, London, in 1946. It seems that there were perhaps five further productions and it is now, in effect, forgotten; the copy I read needed its gatherings cut open. But you could stage it today without changing a word and have audiences roaring with laughter.
Actually, to keep the audience on side, I would make some changes to one supporting character: the waiter at the start of the second act, described in the stage directions as “possibly a Philippino”; I’ll spare you the rest.
JULIAN (after a pause). Can anyone think of a fifteen-letter word beginning with P A? The clue is ‘misconception’.
JANE. How many letters?
JULIAN. Fifteen.
JANE. What do you say’s the clue?
JULIAN. Misconception.
JANE. I don’t know.
JULIAN. Thanks. (He pauses.) You haven’t got an india-rubber on you, have you?
I just met the stewardoodle downstairs and he said Clutterbuck was frightfully worried about me this morning in case the storm had upset me last night because storms always scare the knicker-knackles off me, so he persuaded the captain to let him go ashore for me first thing in the pilot’s cutter so, of course, we just missed each other, and if that isn’t love I’ll take ginger wine.
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