Marry the Girl (play)

[1] The actor-manager Tom Walls, who presented the farces and co-starred in most of them, gathered a regular company of players for the series.

The first four in the series, It Pays to Advertise, A Cuckoo in the Nest, Rookery Nook and Thark had long runs, averaging more than 400 performances each.

The next three were less outstandingly successful, with progressively shorter runs: Plunder (1928) ran for 344 performances, A Cup of Kindness (1929) for 291, and A Night Like This (1930), 267.

The regular company of supporting actors included Robertson Hare, who played a figure of harassed respectability; Mary Brough in eccentric old lady roles; Ethel Coleridge as the severe voice of authority; Winifred Shotter as the sprightly young female lead; and the saturnine Gordon James.

Mrs Chattaway returns; they try to bluff things out, but a police inspector arrives to report the finding of Wally's car.

He insists that Hugh should accept a lucrative brief to appear for the plaintiff in a breach of promise case.

Wally proposes in open court to Doris, who accepts; Hugh counters by revealing that he has married Jane.

The hullabaloo in court engulfs the hapless judge and even the incandescent Mrs Chattaway, as each character expresses his or her enthusiasm or outrage.

There was a general view among the critics that although the third act was exceptionally funny, the first two were slow, with some good comic scenes but also quite a lot of not particularly amusing exposition of the plot.

[5] The Times said, "But the Court scene, though it could make no claim to originality, was good fun from beginning to end.

"[6] The Illustrated London News predicted a run of more than 100 nights, but "the credit for this will be due to the actors rather than the authors, who have not been lavish in their wit or in inventing notably original or humorous situations".

Marry the Girl was unlike the nine earlier film versions of the Aldwych series in several respects: it was made by a different company (British Lion Films rather than British & Dominions Film Corporation and Gaumont British);[8] it was not directed by Walls, who had directed eight of the first nine;[9] and neither Walls, Lynn nor Hare featured in it: the only member of the original stage cast who appeared was Winifred Shotter, reprising her stage role as Doris.