As a lifelong lover of France and all things French, I only had to read the first few pages of the script of Don’t Dress for Dinner to know that I really wanted to direct it.

The play is a Boulevarde Comedy, a style originating in Paris in the 19th Century, developing quite separately from more upper-class theatre. Boulevarde plays can be serious or comic and this one is very comic – approximating to farce in English – though, being French, rather more sophisticated than the Whitehall farces associated with Brian Rix in the middle and later part of the last Century.

Boulevarde plays avoid subjects connected to politics or religion, indeed anything that might be regarded as controversial. The characters are very broadly described, The Husband, the Wife, the Mistress, the Friend, the Cook, and the Cook’s Husband, as in this play.

The original French version of the play “Pajamas pour Six” by Marc Camoletti ran for two years in Paris and the Robin Hawdon adaptation, which we present here, ran for an amazing six years in the West End. Quite a provenance for any play.

So please sit back and enjoy the hilarious French-infused duplicity, chaos, and confusion of Don’t Dress for Dinner!

Steve Smith – Director