Tonight my sister and I caught a preview of the play, ‘What the Butler Saw’ held at the Criterion Theatre. Our £10 tickets got us fairly close to the front and proved to be a rather entertaining night. I had no preconceptions of the play, and it was only until recently that I found out that the English colloquialism ‘What the Butler Saw’ refers to seeing something with voyeuristic connotations.

The play follows the script written well over thirty years ago by Joe Orton starting off with a psychiatrist’s misguided attempt to seduce his secretary. Thrown in his drunk and floozy wife, a young and ambitious Bell boy, the doctor’s overzealous reviewer from the city department, a dim-witted policeman, a handful of lies begetting lies, plenty of slamming doors and quick wit and you get an idea of what this classic English farce offers to its audience.

The script is extremely quick with rarely a moment for neither the audience, nor the cast members to actually breathe. The plot builds up momentum quickly and will have the audience laughing at the awkward situations in which the doctor tries to untangle himself with but finds him even more involved with lie after lie. The ending comes rather suddenly and slightly unbelievably but is still a good show to go and watch for those that appreciate British humour.

My sister and I were standing in queue for half price tickets on Saturday, and somehow ended up with some for one that we didn’t really know much about, The Rat Pack. Set at the Sands Hotel, this musical takes you back in time to a place to be entertained by the three great singers, Frank Sinatra, Samy Davis Jr, and Dean Martin (all accompanied by the Borelli Sisters). This musical will disappoint if you are after acting genius, with its story really setting the scene for classic songs to be performed including “Under My skin”, “Once if a Lifetime”, “The Candyman”, “Mr Bojangles”, “Amore”, and “New York, New York”.

Of what acting actually happened was quite well done, with all the little characteristics of each singer very well detailed. Sinatra had his strong New-Yorkian accent, even throughout his singing, Martin, his, if not overdone, constant half-drunk state for which he was well known by, and then the charismatic and energetic performances of Samy Davis Jr. The costumes were just as well attuned to each person, Sinatra’s being the most finest with gold cufflinks and a full suit, Dean Martin still classic but a little more rough around the edges, to the white socks and slightly short pants of Samy Davis Jr.

This performance is definitely not a musical for everyone and especially unlikely to appeal to anyone in my age group, but I still enjoyed the show for both its small bits of comedic acting and the stunning singing ability of the actors. Be warned though, that a number of big fans of each of these singers may attend, and sitting next to them can be hazardous to your health, as my sister will tell you, (unfortunately having to listen to their awful singing!)