TOURING the UK right now is an updated version of the Olivier Award-winning Westminster comedy Out of Order by that master of farce, Ray Cooney.

A stellar cast has been gathered and it’s being directed by Cooney himself who is celebrating his 85th birthday and 70 years in showbusiness.

Now the mayhem of this wonderfully funny play about to burst onto the scene in Malvern where it will be attracting audiences throughout the coming week to the town’s popular Festival Theatre.

The all-star cast includes Shaun Williamson (EastEnders, Extras) stars as ‘George Pigden’; Sue Holderness (Only Fools & Horses, Green Green Grass) as ‘Mrs Willey’; Jeffrey Harmer (Out of Order, Fox on the Fairway) as ‘Richard Willey’; Susie Amy (Footballers’ Wives) as ‘Jane Worthington’ and James Holmes (Miranda) as the ‘Waiter’.

Also in the cast is Arthur Bostrom, (‘Allo ‘Allo) as the ‘Hotel Manager’, with Elizabeth Elvin as ‘Nurse Foster’; Jules Brown as ‘Ronnie Worthington’, and David Warwick as ‘The Body’.

When Tory Junior Minister Richard Willey tries to spend the evening with Jane, one of the Opposition’s secretaries, in the Westminster Hotel, things don’t exactly go according to plan - starting with the discovery of a body trapped in the hotel’s only unreliable sash window…

Enlisting the help of his hapless private secretary George Pigden, Willey’s sticky situation goes from bad to worse, and with the arrival of Jane’s distraught young husband and with the addition of an unscrupulous waiter, Mrs Willey and Nurse Foster things really come to a head!


Ray Cooney said: “Having directed my Olivier Award-Winning play in London and all over the world, and hearing all that wonderful raucous laughter from audiences, it has become one of my favourite plays."

He added: "I've up-dated it to present day and, fortunately, the basic premise of a philandering politician is as likely today as it was when the play was originally written!”

Out of Order is at the Festival from Monday, May 8 through to Saturday, May 13.