In the play, a young sculptor and his fiancée have borrowed some expensive antique furniture from a neighbour's flat without his permission to impress an elderly millionaire art collector.

When the power fails, the neighbour returns early, other people also arrive unexpectedly, and matters descend into near-chaos.

In the early spring of 1965, Kenneth Tynan, dramaturge of the National Theatre, commissioned Shaffer to write a one-act play to accompany a production of Miss Julie starring Maggie Smith and Albert Finney.

To produce a more sustaining dramatic premise than the mere gimmick of inverse lighting, Shaffer devised the notion that one of the characters had a reason to actually keep the others in the dark.

Owing to scheduling difficulties at Chichester, Black Comedy was given very little rehearsal time, and it opened without a single public preview.

He added that "it was acted with unmatchable brio by Smith and Finney, by Derek Jacobi as an incomparable Brindsley, and by Graham Crowden as a savagely lunatic Colonel Melkett".

Brindsley Miller, a young sculptor, and his debutante fiancée, Carol Melkett, have stolen some expensive antiques from his neighbour Harold Gorringe, who is away for the weekend, to spruce up Brindsley's apartment to impress Carol's father and a wealthy prospective art buyer named Georg Bamberger.

As Carol blindly mixes everyone drinks, Brindsley attempts to silently restore as much of the stolen furniture to Harold's flat as possible.

When Clea reveals herself, Carol is horrified, but is interrupted by Miss Furnival who, completely inebriated, erupts into a drunken tirade, ranting on the terrors of the modern supermarket, calling to her dead father, and prophesying a judgement day when "the heathens in their leather jackets" will be "stricken from their motorcycles."

This time, the guests mistake the millionaire for the electrician, until Schuppanzigh emerges from the cellar and declares that the fuse is fixed.

As Harold, Colonel Melkett, and Carol advance on Brindsley and Clea, Schuppanzigh turns on the lights with a great flourish.

Shaffer described the opening night of Black Comedy the performance as "a veritable detonation of human glee", and wrote of an audience member sobbing with laughter and calling out in pain.

[4] J. C. Trewin in The Illustrated London News thought the piece overlong: "If this were a revue, we might consider ten minutes ample".

"[6] Claudia Cassidy in the Chicago Tribune also thought the play overlong, but noted that "some of the sight and sound gags are so flawless … that the audience is reduced to jelly".

[8] Penelope Gilliatt in The Observer gave the piece a moderate welcome but found it "a blinding idea not very boldly pursued".

[9] In The Guardian, Philip Hope-Wallace called it "an uproarious piece of slapstick vaudeville … sometimes a little long, but it comes to a magnificent climax almost worthy of Feydeau".

[10] When the first Broadway production opened in 1967, John Chapman wrote in The Daily News, found that the author sustained the comedy from start to finish: "I was sorry indeed when the stage went dark and the farce ended".

It concerns a down-on-her-luck fortune teller living in a decaying seaside resort, and the two young men – Tom, the lead singer in a rock band, and Frank, his business manager – who consult her.