Director: Stevie Hughes
Playing dates: Friday 12th – Sat 21st September (not Sunday)
It’s 1939 and producer David O. Selznick halts filming of the most expensive and eagerly anticipated Hollywood movie to date (Gone With the Wind). Sacking its director, he summons Wizard Of Oz director Victor Fleming and ace script doctor Ben Hecht. This is the starting point of Ron Hutchinson’s hilarious screwball comedy. Based on Hecht’s own memoirs, the writer and director find they have all been locked in Selznick’s office by the desperate producer, fed nothing but bananas and peanuts to sustain them (“brain food”) by his secretary, and ordered to thrash out a new screenplay in less than five days, working round the clock. And because Hecht has never read Gone With The Wind, Selznick and Fleming act out the whole 1000+ pages for him, scene by scene! This affectionate homage to the golden days of Hollywood has a script that’s as sharp as a razor as three caged monkeys gradually go bananas!
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