Product Code Database
| 1,610"12 Successful Years for Mr. Brian Rix", The Times, 13 September 1962, p. 12 |
| 1,475 |
| 1,403 |
| ~1,210 |
| ~765 |
Rix built a company of regular players who appeared in some or all of these shows. They included Leo Franklyn, Larry Noble, Dennis Ramsden and Derek Royle,Smith, p. 97 and members of Rix's family: his wife, Elspet Gray, his sister, Sheila Mercier and his brother-in-law, Peter Mercier. Others who appeared in one or more of the Whitehall farces include Terry ScottGaye, p. 100 and Andrew Sachs.Chapman, p. 3 Rix starred in all five plays, in a range of roles: a "gormless recruit" to the army in Reluctant Heroes;"Whitehall Theatre", The Times, 13 September 1950, p. 6 a timidly crooked bookie's runner in Dry Rot;Smith, p. 76 a street musician recruited as a secret agent in Simple Spymen;Chapman, passim four identical brothers in One For the Pot;Smith, p. 86 and a harassed civil servant in Chase Me, Comrade.Smith, p. 93 From Dry Rot onwards, Rix and his authors developed a double act for the Rix characters and those played by Leo Franklyn, in which the two performers played off one another rather as Ralph Lynn and Tom Walls had done in the Aldwych farces of the previous generation.Smith, pp. 58, 77 and 84
Although the five plays constituting the Whitehall farces had long runs and the theatres usually had full houses, the majority of London critics were dismissive of them. Writing in the Financial Times in 1980, Michael Coveney commented: "A tradition of critical snobbery has grown up around these plays, partly because they were so blatantly popular but chiefly because of our conviction that farce, unless written by a Frenchman, is an inferior theatrical species. Once the National Theatre has done its duty by Priestley and Terence Rattigan and others teetering on the brink of theatrical respectability I suggest they employ Mr. Rix … to investigate the ignored riches of English farce between Ben Travers and Alan Ayckbourn."Coveney, Michael. "Simple Spymen", Financial Times, 11 August 1980, p. 9 Some London critics of the 1950s and 1960s did not disregard them, including Harold Hobson, Ronald Bryden, J. W. Lambert and Alan Dent.Smith, p. 70
In 1966, having been unable to secure the lease of the Whitehall Theatre, Rix took his company on tour in Chase Me, Comrade and Bang, Bang Beirut (later retitled Stand By Your Bedouin), by Cooney and Hilton.Smith, p. 96 Later productions by the Rix company at the Garrick Theatre and elsewhere included Uproar in the House (1967), by Anthony Marriott and Alistair Foot; Let Sleeping Wives Lie (also 1967) by Harold Brooke and Kay Bannerman; She's Done It Again (1969), by Michael Pertwee; Don't Just Lie There, Say Something (Pertwee, 1971); and A Bit Between the Teeth (Pertwee, 1974). According to Leslie Smith in a study of modern British farce, although some of the Rix productions after Chase Me, Comrade achieved substantial success, none of them had the conspicuously long runs of the five Whitehall farces.Smith, pp. 97–98 In 1976, Rix returned to the Whitehall with Fringe Benefits (Donald Churchill and Cooney) which ran until 1977 when he retired from the stage.
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