On Your Honour
Roger Leach, Colin Wakefield

Jermyn Street Theatre

Rupert White

Given that working in the legal profession might occasionally seem to be a farce, any lawyer is likely to find it a pleasant change to view that farce from the outside. That change would be ‘On Your Honour’, a quaintly ‘normal’ piece of comedy theatre running for just three weeks at the Jermyn Street Theatre in London.

With a small cast that nonetheless virtually overruns the tiny stage when everyone is on at the close, ‘On Your Honour’ is a diverting and well-paced farce, featuring a judgeship-hunting QC’s hidden family, unrequited love, a near-miss of an affair, and the power-mad rantings of a randy Lord Chancellor.


Only one of these elements was personally recognisable to the Gazette, but the combination of trousers-down comedy with a healthy dose of liberal moralising – homophobia is bad, affairs are naughty, women should be allowed to have children and a career – made for an amusing hour and a half in the company of that oft-maligned beast, the Great British Farce.


For an opening night, no cues were obviously missed, timing for laughs was generally on the money, and though generally one need not care greatly about farce characters, ‘On Your Honour’ manages to pull on a few heartstrings as well. The confusion so essential to farce is executed well, with the audience trotting along happily guessing each twist just before it unfurls.

Every cast member gives a good account, but the triangle of leading man Philip Childs, who plays the failed philanderer Nick Willmott QC, Luciana Lawlor, his potential paramour, and Janet Rawson as Nick’s wife is a good one. Stan Pretty, who plays the Lord Chancellor Sir Harry Lumsden-Clark, is dutifully lecherous and has the rubber face to match Sir Harry’s alternate angry and amorous moods.


‘On Your Honour’ is written by ex-law lecturer Colin Wakefield and Roger Leach, recognisable for playing Sergeant Penny in ‘The Bill’ in the 1980s and 1990s. Mr Wakefield admitted to the Gazette that he had never practised as a solicitor, but his pokes at the interminable nature of legal conferences, the stuffiness of barristers and a Lord Chancellor who self-righteously yells ‘clean up the bar!’ while ogling girls half his age shows his guesswork is good enough to pass muster. Well worth a ticket if you are in town with a night to spare this month.


l ‘On Your Honour’ is at the Jermyn Street Theatre, Jermyn Street, London SW1 until 29 September. Tickets from the box office, tel: 020 7287 2875.