Obiter hasn't seen such an alarming display of excess hair since the 1970s, but fortunately there was good reason for it as lawyers from London and home counties firm Penningtons recently went on tour with a play for clients to demonstrate how not to go about making staff redundant.

Lesson number one, presumably, was that wearing a funny wig does not make it better.

They finished, remarkably, by treading the boards at Shakespeare's Globe on the south bank of the Thames - the Bard, of course, was much inspired by the law: 'Much Ado About Nothing' concerns the level of fees in conveyancing work, 'Twelfth Night' is a sad tale of a City solicitor working on a big deal, while 'All's Well That Ends Well' is about a successful mediation.

Pictured from left: Michelle Thompson, Jon Heuvel, Simon Fenton, Michael Cole (standing), Shashi Sachdeva and Sarah Rattue.

(This article refers to images that appear in the printed edition, see [2004] Gazette, 5 February, 11)