The Butler
Dates: 2006 - 2010
Written by Joe Bennett
Directed by Mike Friend
It’s sexy, it’s stunning to look at, and it’s very very funny. It’s The Butler. Where circus meets theatre and satire holds the mirror up to the middle classes.
The Butler is like nothing else. It’s a Big Top spectacular and it’s intimate social satire. It’s bitter, it’s beautiful and it’s full of hilarious humour.
Inspired by the Peter Greenaway film The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, The Butler takes a hard look at the social manners and conventions of western culture, with often bizarre results.
“For once, a standing ovation was not just appropriate; in this case it was necessary.”
Tom Hunt, The Nelson Mail
"In a word: magnificent'' Matt Richens, Theatreview, 29/06/10 FULL REVIEW HERE
The central character of the butler presides over a dinner party. He stands apart from the action having seen and heard it all before. In counterpoint to The Butler’s gloom, the dinner party guests are all exuberance. Brittle as biscuits, they wind up every social convention to the pitch of parody and beyond.
The resulting action is chaotic and delightful, but underlain with an emptiness that the characters must defy. Here is the froth and bubble above the dark and the stark. It’s like nothing seen before but it is instantly recognisable.
For a fantastic collection of images from the UK run at the Pleasance Theatre visit the Alarmy website
Cast
Pascal Ackermann
Skye Broberg
Sophie Ewert
David Ladderman
Jola and Nele Siezen
Daniel Lee Smith
Tom Trevella
Audience 18,000 +
113 shows
11 cities throughout NZ
23 shows in London
The Butler Dresses Again
Dates: 10 - 28 January 2018
Directed by Mike Friend.
If you saw the original Butler you’ll recognise The Butler Dresses Again and at the same time you won’t. It’s still funny and sexy and wrong. It’s still like nothing else.
The butler presides over a dinner party in nowhere. The guests blow in on the wind and have no idea who they are, why they’re there or what the rules are. So they make it up as they go. The result is cruel, comic, pointless and entirely recognisable.
Reviews
"– this is a graphic extravaganza which achieves the common touch.'' Grant Hindin-Miller, Theatreview, 13/01/18 FULL REVIEW HERE
"..elements of physical theatre are played with exhausting verve .." Christopher Moore, The Press, 14/01/18 FULL REVIEW HERE
Cast
Tom Trevella
David Ladderman
Pascal Ackermann
Jared Corbin
Lizzie Tollemache
Annie Kirkman
Hester Arden
Kim Garrett
The Butler