Ray Cooney and John Chapman

Ray Cooney began his theatrical career as a boy actor in Song of Norway at the Palace Theatre in 1946. He served his apprenticeship by playing in various repertory companies from Worthing to Blackburn before graduating to Brian Rix’s company at the Whitehall Theatre in 1956. He played Dry Rot and Simple Spymen and then began a writing career which, to date, has produced seventeen West End plays including One For the Pot (co-written with Tony Hilton), Not Now Darling, Move Over Mrs Markham, There Goes the Bride and My Giddy Aunt (all co-written with John Chapman), Chase Me Comrade, Why Not Stay For Breakfast?, Wife Begins at Forty, Run For Your Wife!, Two Into One, Out of Order, It Runs in the Family and Funny Money.

As Producer and Director he has been responsible for over thirty London productions, including Lloyd George Knew My Father, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, They’re Playing Our Song, Duet For One, Bodies, Chicago, Clouds and Children of a Lesser God.

In 1983, Ray formed the Theatre of Comedy Company (bringing together the founder members consisting of Thirty West End stars) and he became its first Artistic Director. During Ray’s tenure the company produced over twenty plays including Run For Your Wife, Out of Order, Two Into One, Passion Play, and the acclaimed revivals of See How They Run, Loot, When We Are Married and Pygmalion starring Peter O’Toole and John Thaw.

During Ray’s hectic theatrical career he has always found time to continue acting and played the last year of Run For Your Wife in London before appearing in the New York production. Recently he played the lead in It Runs in the Family and Funny Money.

Ray has been married to Linda for nearly thirty five years and apart from their son Michael (author of Cash on Delivery!) they have an elder son Danny who lives in Australia with his wife and two children.

John Chapman initially trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After three years on stage, he decided to turn his skills away from the spoken word and towards the text itself. His first play Dry Rot opened at the Whitehall Theatre, London in 1954. It proved to be a resounding success and ran for three and a half years, a total of 1,475 performances. As a result he decided to concentrate on his playwriting. His next play Simple Spymen also ran for over three years and was followed by The Brides of March, Diplomatic Baggage and Oh Clarence.

The early sixties witnessed the beginning of a long relationship between Chapman and the BBC. He has written over two hundred TV comedies including Blandings Castle for Sir Ralph Richardson , Happy Ever After (co-written with Eric Merriman) which starred June Whitfield and Terry Scott, as well as 26 episodes of a highly successful Thames Television series Fresh Fields, with Julia McKenzie and Anton Rogers, which won the EMMY Award in the US for the most popular comedy. His most recent play Business Affairs (co-written with Jeremy Lloyd), extensively toured the UK during 2001.