Dirty Work (play)

[3] Many members of the familiar company remained: Lynn, in his customary "silly ass" role, Robertson Hare, as a figure of put-upon respectability; Mary Brough as a good-hearted battle-axe; Ethel Coleridge as the voice of middle-class primness; and the saturnine Gordon James.

With the aid of the formidable housekeeper, Mrs Bugle, the grim night-watchman, Toome, and the solemn head assistant, Clement Peck, they stage a fake burglary of the shop, adopting disguises.

By dropping a discreet word to a suave customer who is correctly suspected of being part of the gang, the conspirators lure the real thieves into intruding into the premises during the supposed burglary.

The Daily Mirror commented, "There have been Aldwych farces with a better plot and more cumulative farcical interest, but in this one Ben Travers, the perennial author, shows that he still has the ability to get a laugh in almost every line.

[3] The Manchester Guardian thought the play not quite on a par with earlier Aldwych farces, specifically Rookery Nook or Thark, but granted it "a worthy place in the sequence".