Aldwych Farcical

Plays in the series, including Rookery Nook, Thark and Plunder, were set in houses built and decorated in faux-antique rustic style, mostly on the fringes of London.

Between 1923 and 1933 the actor-manager Tom Walls presented a series of twelve farces at the Aldwych Theatre in the West End of London, co-starring with the comedy actor Ralph Lynn.

[1] The theatre historian Ronald Strang writes that the farces were "Loosely plotted around the suspicion of sexual improprieties, but enlivened by Travers's playful language, eccentric characters and deft routines".

[2] Some of the most popular plays in the series, including Thark and Plunder, were set in houses built in rustic style on the fringes of London, in locations such as Horsham and Walton Heath,[3] or sometimes, as in Rookery Nook, further away.

[5] In 1938 the artist, cartoonist and author Osbert Lancaster had a critical and popular success with his book Pillar to Post, in which he drew and commented on building styles from ancient times to the present day.

interior of country house with two men and a woman, standing, ground level and a young woman half-way up the stairs to the gallery
Rookery Nook , Aldwych Theatre , 1926: from left Tom Walls , Ralph Lynn , Stella Bonheur and Ena Mason
interior of large room in 20th-century country house, with staircase between large sitting room and first-floor balcony with doors and windows off
"A wealth of old oak panelling ... long lines of sporting prints, punctuated here and there by a barometer or a warming-pan": Lancaster's illustration of "Aldwych Farcical", showing the features discussed in Homes Sweet Homes and by the historian Clive Aslet