What the Butler Saw (1987)

Highly Recommended

UK

Television Film

Series Title: Theatre Night (1985-1990)

Director: Barry Davis

Writer: Joe Orton

Cinematographer: Derek Slee

Composer: Jim Parker

Cast: Dinsdale Landen, Prunella Scales, Tessa Peake-Jones, Timothy West, Tyler Butterworth, Bryan Pringle

White golliwogs, cross-dressing coppers, bellboy rapists, insanity, incest, and Winston Churchill’s giant member all play their part in this trouser-soilingly funny BBC production of Joe Orton’s farcical, bitingly satirical 1969 play, in which the head psychiatrist of a lunatic asylum, when trying to conceal the attempted molestation of his new secretary from his wife, only succeeds in making himself (and everyone else) look completely round the bend. Iain.Stott