Tom, Dick and Harry

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Play Opened 23 August 2005, Closed 29 October 2005

Duke of York's Theatre St Martin's Lane, London

The new farce by Ray Cooney and his son Michael.

Tom, Dick and Harry is the hilarious story of three brothers - Tom and his wife are about to adopt a baby. His brothers, Dick and Harry, are anxious to help make a good impression on the woman from the agency who has arrived to check on the home and lifestyle of the prospective parents. But, ofcourse, things don't quite as planned - well, what would you expect - this is a Ray Cooney farce!!! Tom, Dick and Harry are played by real life brothers Joe McGann, Stephen McGann and Mark McGann. The cast also features Hannah Waterman from TV's EastEnders, Mark Wingett from TV's The Bill and Louise Jameson from TV's EastEnders along with Brian Green, Sarah Wateridge and David Warwick.

"Ray Cooney, grand master of English farce, has written this one with his offspring, Michael. The piece is remarkably topical, its subjects including house prices, illegal immigrants, alcohol-smuggling, adoption problems and the dark doings of NHS hospitals with body parts. Surely all this requires men of an extraordinary, perhaps demented, imagination and efficiency to turn it into a functioning farce. The Cooneys are those men; and Cooney pere's own direction, nimble and witty, seals their success... The two Cooneys and the three McGanns have a terrific time, and so will you... The whole thing is hilarious, daft and utterly irresistible." The Sunday Times

"Classic Ray Cooney - What you get here is the nearest thing to a stage cartoon, but drawn with such utter confidence and admirable speed you have to laugh" The Daily Express

"It takes a while for the comic motor of Tom, Dick And Harry to get going but once it does, there's no stopping it. Whether its to your taste or not is another question but a woman next to me was wiping away tears of laughter and so, at times, was I... It's never subtle, but it's executed with a lot of pratfalls, belly laughs and high energy." The Sunday Express

"This is the morning when Mrs Potter will arrive from the adoption agency to check on the suitability of Tom and Linda. But Tom's dopey brothers are on hand to create mayhem. Silly foreign voices, inappropriate farting sounds, and bad jokes could add up to something endearing; but they don't. As someone says at one point, 'there's been a bit of a misunderstanding'. In this case, the idead that this material was ever funny." The Sunday Telegraph

"Presumably the evening was supposed to be hilarious, co-scripted by the West End veteran with his son Michael, and starring the brothers, Joe, Stephen and Mark McGann as siblings in a pickle with a stern adoption-agency rep and a copper, a dismembered body in a rubbish bag and two wailing illegal immigrants. Or is this all some elaborate non-joke?... All right, Cooney knows technically how to make the chaos escalate, with five doors and a window thrown into the equation, and the mayhem towards the end becomes almost winningly surreal. But the humour is just in bad taste, rather than startlingly bold... and Cooney Snr.'s directing is shockingly careless." The Independent on Sunday