Friday, August 14, 2009

"I always knew my inside leg would lead to power."


The Bed-Sitting Room is a satirical play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus. It started off as a one-act play which was first produced at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury. This was adapted to a longer play which was first performed in 1963 at London's Mermaid Theatre, it was a critical and commercial hit, and was revived in 1967. A film based on the play was released in 1970, although this was less successful. The film was directed by Richard Lester and the cast included Ralph Richardson, Arthur Lowe, Rita Tushingham, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Michael Hordern, Marty Feldman, Harry Secombe and Milligan himself. The screenplay was adapted by Charles Wood.

The play is set in a post-apocalyptic London, nine months after World War III ("the Nuclear Misunderstanding"), which lasted for two minutes and twenty eight seconds – "including the signing of the peace treaty". Nuclear fallout is producing strange mutations in people; the title refers to the character Lord Fortnum, who finds himself transforming into a bed-sitting room (other characters turn into a parrot and a wardrobe). The plot concerns the fate of the first child to be born after the war.

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