Being asked to write the Rules of Farce is akin to being asked to describe the Rules of Life - where do you start and what do you leave out? Also, it implies that farce, or any other kind of theatrical endeavour, can be learnt by studying some kind of manual. However, having written in this particular genre for over thirty years, a certain amount of introspection is inevitable, so I will attempt (for the very first time!) to unravel what goes into my work - and why.

However, before laying bare my formula, I should say that 'farce' covers a wide area. There would seem to be a point at which 'comedy' becomes 'farce' and, having become 'farce', it then flows into several farcical tributaries. Therefore, you, the reader, could well be presented with a totally different set of rules by, say, Alan Ayckbourn, Michael Frayn or Nell Simon - if I may allow myself to be placed alongside my three colleagues.

I believe I can see the roots of my kind of farce in Shakespeare's comedies, through Feydeau, Pinero, Ben Travers, Vernon Sylvaine, Philip King and, finally, John Chapman's Whitehall farces. This is not surprising as I was a Young actor who had the benefit of spending his early years in various Repertory companies appearing in the comedies of these Masters and without realising it, soaking up the wealth of theatrical experience handed down over the years by these writers and the artistes who appeared in their plays. After all, I was acting with actors who had, in their youth, acted with actors who had acted with actors who had acted with actors who had appeared in the original productions of The Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Over these thirty years what seems to have developed into a 'Ray Cooney' comedy is, I hope, a well-structured piece of drama that would have satisfied those early craftsmen with the addition of my own convoluted yet chess-like, almost algebraic, development of plot.
And so, to my Rules - for my kind of farce:

1. In the beginning there is THE PLOT. I'm not searching for a 'comedy' plot or a 'funny' storyline. I'm searching for a tragedy. Farce, more than comedy, is akin to tragedy.

In Run For Your Wife the 'hero' is a bigamist: this situation in real life is an absolute tragedy for those involved. My play doesn't dwell on the tragedy (a farce is intended to get laughs), but the audience instinctively understands what is at stake.

In Out of Order, a Cabinet Minister's illicit evening in a London hotel is brought to an abrupt halt when he and the young lady discover a dead body in the bedroom. The Government could fall ('one more scandal for the Conservatives etc. etc.'), and so he embarks on a cover-up which risks both his marriage and his political future.

In real life - as politicians know - this situation brings tragedy. In Out of Order it also brings laughter, because the audience knows what's at stake for the characters in the play.

2. THE CHARACTERS must be truthful and recognisable. Again, this is why the audience laughs. The characters are believable - it is the situations that are slightly out of the ordinary; ordinary people who are out of their depth in a predicament which is beyond their control and they are unable to contain - tragedy again.

3. The ability to RE-WRITE is essential. My farces are pure concoctions. I never get it exactly right the first time. The original script is comparable to a middle-of-the-range Ford motor car. By the time it appears on the West End stage it must have acquired the precision, the elegance and the comfort of a Rolls Royce.

I attempt to achieve this by, initially, having a play-reading of the first draft of the script to a small invited audience. Then, having learnt if the basic premise holds good and how the various comedic ramifications have amused them, I take the play back to the drawing board.

Huge areas are then restructured, re-written and generally re-shaped before the next step, which is a 'try-out' production in a regional repertory theatre. Characters may be added or removed in order to serve the requirements of the play. Once I know from the initial response that the basis of the play is sound, no amount of time and effort is spared to get the play right for its regional try-out.

And after the try-out, more re-writing. Every single moment has to work. A West End production is not mounted until I know for sure that the play is as perfect as I can get it to be.

4. CASTING is vital. Because of the laughter my kind of play invokes, it is sometimes thought that 'comedians' serve farce well. Invariably, disaster! Farce needs actors and actresses who can play tragedy, but also they must have the technique, the stamina, the precision and the dexterity that farce demands. And, almost above all, they must have generosity of spirit. Farce is teamwork. You can't have selfish actors pulling attention at the wrong moment.

Focus is vital. It all looks so easy when you're in the audience - and so it should - but many an established actor has come unstuck playing farce. There are no beautiful, poetic monologues to hide behind. It's mundane language. The characters are not standing centre-stage, spot-lit, intellectualising about their predicament. They're rushing around dealing with it.

5. A rule personal to me is REAL TIME. The two hours spent in the theatre by the audience is two hours in the existence of the characters in the play. No fade-outs. No passage of time between Acts 1 and 2. When the curtain rises on the second act the characters are exactly how we left them at the end of Act 1, and the action is continuous.

This imposes huge demands on the playwright. Only one setting and two hours of continuous drama/laughter - but the rewards are worth it. And the conjuror has done everything 'before your very eyes'.

6. Finally, never underestimate the intelligence of THE AUDIENCE. Several people who first read Run For Your Wife (including my own wife) said, 'It's very funny but the complications become so convoluted that I had to keep going back to the script to check what was what, who was who and who'd said what to whom.' That, of course, was reading the play. Farces have to be performed, not read.

The audience is always the missing ingredient; this is who farces are written for. As it turned out, the audience never missed a trick in Run For Your Wife. They remember everything. Moments that are set up in Act 1 and pay off in Act 2 are taken up by the audience without a pause.

I believe that the audience likes to work. Anybody who has paid upwards of £20 for a ticket, suffered the slings and arrows of British Rail or been reduced to penury by parking in a a West End garage, deserves respect. The audience has had the intelligence to leave their television sets, and the least the playwright can do is set before them the very best that can be mustered. Long may they live -and laugh.

Here endeth the lesson according to Ray Cooney . . .

The above article appeared in Brian Rix's book 'LIFE IN THE FARCE LANE' (or Tragedy with its trousers down) published by Andre Deutsch in 1995.