Ray Cooney

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English playwright and actor, born 1932. Sometimes known as "the master of farce". [1]

His biggest success Run For Your Wife lasted 9 years in London's West End [2] and is its longest running comedy. [3] He has had 17 of his plays performed in there in total. [4]

He began as a child actor in 1946. In the fifties and sixties he appeared in many of Brian Rix's Whitehall farces. It was during this time that he co-wrote his first play One For The Pot which was, according to Cooney, "immediately successful" [5]

Other works include Not Now Darling, Move Over Mrs Markham, Wife Begins at Forty, Two into One and its sequel Out of Order, It Runs in the Family, a sequel to Run For Your Wife entitled Caught in the Net and Funny Money. He recently co-wrote a farce wtih his son Michael, Tom, Dick and Harry. Cooney's farces combine a traditional british bawdiness with structural complication, as characters leap to assumptions, are forced to pretend to be things that they aren't, and often talk at cross-purposes to hilarious effect.

In 1983 he created the Theatre of Comedy Company and became its artistic director. During his tenure it produced over twenty plays such as Pygmalion starring Peter O'Toole and John Thaw, Loot and Run For Your Wife itself. [6]

He was awarded an O.B.E. in 2005 in recognition of his services to drama. [7]

His name is referenced in "Little Britain" by the character "Ray McCooney".