See How They Run

See How They Run

by Philip King

Directed by Mark Ashby

In 1947, World War II is over, but the Cold War has just begun. In a parsonage in England, a small-town vicar named Lionel Toop deals with both his free-spirited, Americanized, ex-actress wife Penelope and the scorn of the town busybody, Miss Skillon, upset at Penelope’s taking over the decorating for the church’s Harvest Festival. When Lionel leaves the house for the evening, Clive, an American GI friend of Penelope’s, arrives unexpectedly to catch up on old times. They make plans to go out, but since Clive can’t be seen out of uniform, he disguises himself in one of the vicar’s suits. This leads to several cases of mistaken identity when Penelope’s uncle the Bishop of Lax arrives, all while the search for a communist spy takes place in and around the house and the maid desperately tries to keep everything from descending into chaos. With slapstick humor and wry wit, “See How They Run” has delighted audiences around the world for over seventy years.