Brendan Moir's Playwright Corner

Saki: The Watched Pot, Act III (Pt. 2)


Listen Later

"The Watched Pot" is a three-act comedic play written by Saki in collaboration with Charles Maude. It centers around the inhabitants of Briony manor either scheming or enacting the scheme of marrying the only inheritor of the estate, Trevor Bavvel, before his tyrant of a mother, Hortensia Bavvel, becomes aware of the covert usurpment of her power. The play humorously explores the pressure placed on everyone in the manor as various potential brides are paraded before him, while Trevor remains indifferent and hesitant. While, "the watched pot never boils," lighting a fire under these societal expectations of Edwardian society makes the resulting action of this play as dynamic as a mountain of gunpowder.


Follow me on other platforms:

https://bemuse.bandcamp.com

https://www.instagram.com/talentunlimited1/?hl=en

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0wiNjFbd6rluEHZF4Qffcv

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070481824821&locale=hi_IN

https://www.patreon.com/bemuse


Website: https://bemusearts.com


*This Season's Album Art by Illuvisual*


Hector Hugh Munro (18 December 1870 – 14 November 1916), popularly known by his pen name Saki and also frequently as H. H. Munro, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirize Edwardian society and culture. He is considered by English teachers and scholars a master of the short story and is often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. Influenced by Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll and Rudyard Kipling, Munro himself influenced A. A. Milne, Noël Coward and P. G. Wodehouse.


Besides his short stories (which were first published in newspapers, as was customary at the time, and then collected into several volumes), Munro wrote a full-length play, The Watched Pot, in collaboration with Charles Maude; two one-act plays; a historical study, The Rise of the Russian Empire (the only book published under his own name); a short novel, The Unbearable Bassington; the episodic The Westminster Alice (a parliamentary parody of Alice in Wonderland); and When William Came, subtitled A Story of London Under the Hohenzollerns, a fantasy about a future German invasion and occupation of Britain.


*Any views/ideas expressed in these plays are not my own, and I do not believe in the censoring of anything controversial or problematic that the playwright/poet/author has written which will impact the way in which the story is told. The integrity of these works is much more important to me than any triggering content, and therefore I would ask that you have the same maturity and mental framework to listen to these pieces and appreciate them in their proper historical context.*



Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/brendan-moirs-playwright-corner/donations
...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Brendan Moir's Playwright CornerBy Brendan Moir