Comedy whodunnit Scissor Happy has extended its West End run at the Duchess Theatre by three months and is now booking up to 18 April 1998.
The play, opened 22 October, is based on Bruce Jordan and Marilyn Abrams' original script for Shear Madness which has entered the Guiness Book of Records as the longest-running non-musical in America and has been performed in 30 cities and 15 different countries worldwide.
Co-writers Neil Mullarkey, Lee Simpson and Jim Sweeney, all members of the UK improvisational comedy group, The Comedy Store Players, adapted the American hit specifically for a British audience. Set in a Covent Garden hair salon, the audience witness the events leading up to the murder of an eccentric concert pianist and then help the on-stage detectives in solving the crime.
Mullarkey and Simpson also direct the proceedings, while Sweeney appears on stage as one of the suspects. All three are continuously working on the script to keep it filled with the most up-to-the-minute, UK-centric spontaneous humour.
--By Terri Paddock
What's On Stage, London