Archives - Habeas Corpus

by Alan Bennett

Directed by Jack Wood

Friday 27th September – Saturday 5th October 1996 in the Auditorium

Described by Sheridan Morley as ‘a strange and rather lovely play made up of bits of farce, wit, despair, nostalgia and the AA Guide to England’, Habeas Corpus is a satirical merry-go-round. This farcical comedy, in which the permissive society is taken to task through a maze of mistaken identities and sexual encounters, is a favourite of the playwright; he calls it ‘a farce without the paraphenalia of farce…trousers fall, it is true, but in an instantaneous way as if by divine intervention.’

Its unique style certainly doesn’t prevent it from being hilarious.