Box and Cox

Public Domain

This Play can be performed Royalty Free

This famous Vaudeville one-act farce from way back is still popular today ...

The classic plot hinges on the fact that Mrs Bouncer has rented the same room to two men ...

... one to use it by night, the other by day

Her efforts to keep them apart and the resulting tangle are the very quintessence of the ludicrous

Box - a printer on a daily newspaper - and Cox - a journeyman hatter - invariably meet on the stairs of the lodging-house when one comes in from work as the other is going out

But neither has any idea that Mrs Bouncer is letting his room to the other

Cox - suspicious that Mrs. Bouncer has been using his flat during the day - complains to her that his coal keeps disappearing and that there is " ... a steady increase of evaporation among my candles, wood, sugar and lucifer matches"

He also complains that his room is continually full of tobacco smoke

Mrs Bouncer gives various excuses among others that Box, who, she says, occupies the attic, is a persistent smoker, and that his smoke must come down the chimney

As usual, Cox departs for his work at the hat shop, and on the stairs passes Box who is returning from the night shift at the newspaper

But today Cox returns unexpectedly and discovers Box in 'his' room ...

FOR THE PAPERBACK DOUBLE-BILL OF "A PAIR OF LUNATICS & BOX AND COX", click here