About the Play:

Run for Your Wife was one of Royal National Theatre of Britain's top 100 plays of the 20th century.

Run for Your Wife is a full-length comedy by Ray Cooney. In this superb example of the British farce, a seemingly ordinary taxi driver has two wives who live minutes from each other in the London suburbs, and he must try desperately to keep them from learning about each other. A fast paced, slapstick, laugh-a-minute romp that leaves your audience in stitches and begging for more.

Run for Your Wife is an outrageous comedy about a taxi driver who gets away with having two wives in different areas of town because of his irregular work schedule. John Smith is a man with a schedule and a secret. He seems like any other normal London cab driver. He owns his own car, sets his own hours, is hard working, punctual and lives a very ordinary life, except for the fact that he is secretly juggling two wives, Mary and Barbara, with the help of his determination and a very, very precise schedule. Run for Your Wife follows John as he is brought home the morning after having been hit on the head while breaking up a mugging. In his dazed confusion, he has told the police and the hospital two different "home" addresses and has been brought home to the wrong wife at the wrong time. Complication is piled upon complication as he must employ the help of his unemployed and hapless neighbour, Stanley Gardner, in a madcap race against two detectives and his own lies to keep each of his suspicious wives from running into each other and to keep all of his stories together. A classic farce in the vein of Michael Frayn's Noises Off or Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, Run For Your Wife has been bringing laughter to audiences for many years.

Run for Your Wife premiered in 1983 at the Criterion Theatre in London, ran for over eight years at five addresses in the West End, and is its longest-running comedy. Ray Cooney, the author, is also an actor, and he played the taxi driver when Run for Your Wife had its premiere on Broadway.

Cast: 2 women, 6 men

What people say:

"Run for Your Wife should run for life." — Sunday Express

"A frolic? It is...a triumph." — Daily Telegraph

"Virtually continuous laughter." — The New York Post

"Audiences will enjoy the show tremendously." — The New York Daily News

"A laugh a minute." — WABC-Radio

"I was exhausted from laughing so hard." — WMCA-Radio

About the Playwright:

Ray Cooney, OBE is an English playwright and actor. He began his theatrical career as a child actor in in 1946, appeared in many plays, and then began a writing career which, to date, has sent eighteen plays to the West End. In 1983 he formed the Theatre of Comedy Company (bringing together the founder members consisting of thirty West End stars) and became its first Artistic Director. During his time with the Theatre of Comedy Company and throughout his career, he has continued to act, direct, and produce while he writes.