Busybody

Busybody is a comedy by Jack Popplewell (1909-1996)[1]

The original text

A play about a voluble cleaning woman who keeps telling the cops how to mind their business and who steps forward with the right evidence in every pinch. She lives in the basement of the office building she cleans and one night finds a body. By the time the police arrive, there is no body and no evidence.

First performed on the West End at Duke of York's Theatre in 1964. Published by Samuel French in 1965.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1866: Performed as Lucretia Borgia by the Le Roy-Duret Company in the Harrington Street Theatre, Cape Town, on

Sources

D.C. Boonzaier, 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1932. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp.203-205

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