Birthday Suite by Robin Hawdon

birthday suite play

Birthday Suite is a comedy which has toured the UK on several occasions, and has played on and off in Europe for over thirty years, including several long running current productions.

(Concord.com appear to have taken it off the Hawdon author page, but Concord.co.uk has it, and so does Amazon)

Take two adjoining hotel suites (The Birthday Suite and the Hookup Suite), add two couples, both on extremely nervous blind dates, contrive that they each somehow meet the wrong partner, and complicate matters with an enthusiastic Italian room waiter whose mission in life is to encourage romance wherever it might spark, and you have the recipe for an evening of chaotic entanglements and unlikely liaisons which constantly teeters on the edge of disaster.

Cast

  • TONY (An Italian room waiter)
  • BOB (A civil servant)
  • KATE (An attractive thirty something)
  • DICK (A psychiatrist)
  • LIZ (Another attractive thirty something)

Setting

Two adjoining bedrooms in a city centre hotel. Virtually identical, one a mirror image of the other, each with an ensuite bathroom off, and both separated by a token ’wall’ down the centre of the stage with an inter-connecting door in the upstage section.

Upstage in each room is a concealed double bed which is lowered by hand from its alcove in the wall (only one of which is actually practical.)

At curtain-up one room is arranged for a private dinner with the bed concealed and a table and chairs set in the centre. The other room just has an ice bucket and champagne bottle set in a prominent position.