FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS FOR TAKE OFF IN BOEING BOEING

1960 poster for the record breaking play

One of the very pleasant memories from the 1960s was a superbly funny  play  called Boeing Boeing, and it is coming to Hornchurch next month.

What is now close to becoming a classic, Boeing Boeing by French writer Marc Camoletti will be at the Queen’s Theatre for the second play of the spring season in March.

Camoletti is also equally famous for another farce ‘Don’t Dress For Dinner’ but Boeing Boeing marked his emergence in the top farce writers club when it launched in Paris in 1960. At the time the mention of farce brought images of Brian Rix’s high pitched squeaky voice rising to a Doppler crescendo and the glass in the windows getting really worried.

The play crossed the Channel in 1962 to the Apollo Theatre transferring to the Duchess in 1965 and running for a total seven years. Battling against young Mr Rix and the Whitehall Theatre farces, Boeing Boeing was remarkable in its attraction, achieving in 1991 the accolade in the Guinness Book of Records for the most performed French play in the world.

The title has an obvious airline connection and fitted beautifully into the plot of philandering bachelor with a liking for a number Air Stewardess girlfriends all on a rota  according to airline timetables. Then along came a jet plane that sliced the departure and arrival times in half and sent is love life into a flat spin.

Get you hair cut, Tony Curtis is in Town

Classic farce, and in this case outrageously funny.

The play has been round the world a few times, and it took the Americans to come up with the perfect actor for the philandering Romeo, Mr Tony Curtis.

The scenario is perfect for the Hollywood star, who in the 60s not only got the girls in a spin, but made the boys change their hair style to a ‘Tony Curtis’, though not recommended for those with a challenged ‘Barnet’.

The basis of the play is swinger and bachelor Bernard, whose Parisian flat was the arrival and departure lounge of his love life.

He kept three stunning stewardesses, all engaged to him and not aware of any opposition.

The wine is spilt when a male friend comes to stay at the flat and the airlines buy the latest Boeing fast jets.

His carefully choreographed diary and well ordered life become an elegant example of Armageddon slowly disintegrating into a very large Black Hole at the end of the rainbow.

The perfect play for Queen’s director by Matt Devitt, and it runs from Friday March 6 to Saturday March 28.

Featuring the Cut to the Chase professionals; Ellie Rose Boswell; Fred Broom; Megan Leigh Mason; Tom Oliver Cornish; Sarah Mahony and Joanna Hickman.

Tickets are available from the box office on 01708 443333 with tip to get in fast as this show shook us in the 1960s and with the above, will repeat it in March.