The comedy was an immediate success when it opened at the St. James Theatre on 9 August 1950, as the second production under Sir Laurence Olivier's management.
A television production of the play was broadcast on the BBC the following year, with Patrick Macnee in the lead.
Her husband and his fellow partisan, Professor Winke, a biologist, are commanded to kill Carvallo but they discover they like him too much.
[citation needed] "His play shimmers with ideas wittily juxtaposed, and it is funnier than the Crazy Gang", wrote the critic Harold Hobson.
At that point, the ABC were using a small studio at Rippon Lea and telecasting its bigger productions from Coppin Hall.