About the work
“Und alles auf Krankenschein” is the German version of “It Runs in the Family”, a farce by the British comedy writer Ray Cooney. The play opened in November 1987 at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford, directed by Cooney himself, and from August 1992 also ran at the Playhouse Theatre in London. The German translation is by Horst Willems; the first German-language production opened in March 1989 at the Kleine Komödie in Vienna.
Plot
The London doctor David Mortimore is about to give the most important lecture of his career, which is meant to pave his way to the top of the hospital. On that very day his former lover Jane Tate turns up at the hospital and tells him that their affair produced a son, now a teenager, who wants to meet his father. To deceive his wife Rosemary, his colleagues and soon the police as well, Mortimore and his friend Dr Hubert Bonney plunge into ever new excuses, false identities and disguises until the doctors’ common room descends into chaos.
Cultural significance
Cooney is regarded as one of Britain’s most successful farce writers, combining mistaken identities, white lies and characters talking at cross-purposes into tightly built comic machines; in France he is known as “the English Feydeau”. In the German-speaking world “Und alles auf Krankenschein” is performed by professional theatres and by numerous amateur companies alike.