STAND-UP comedian, panellist, presenter and actor Rufus Hound is heading to Bath in what is regarded as Joe Orton’s finest play.

What the Butler Saw tells the story of Dr Prentice, a psychiatrist in a private clinic who, while attempting to seduce the new secretary he is interviewing, is interrupted by his wife, her lover, a government inspector and a policeman on the hunt for a certain missing part of Winston Churchill.

First staged in 1969, What the Butler Saw appalled and enraged certain audiences with its blatant sexual overtones, attacks on authority and conventional morality.

“Before I took the job I understood Orton’s place in the pantheon of British playwrights but I didn’t really know a great deal about him or his work,” said Hound.

“One of the huge joys I’ve had is being given a reason to find out more about the man who I think was the father of punk. He was prepared to do things in his own way and on his own terms.

“If that meant living on next to nothing and a life of poverty then so be it. It wasn’t about compromising. He wanted to work and he wanted it to go well but not by selling himself out and that is the mark of a true artist in many ways.”

So what attracted him to the role?

“It was a chance to play somebody that I don’t think I would naturally be chosen to play,” he said. “Dr Prentice runs a Psychiatrists Practice which, at the time that Orton wrote this, was still viewed as relatively new science and only for people with genuine large-scale mental problems.

“He makes a semi-forgivable mistake at the beginning of his work-day and the ramifications of this, as he desperately tries to cover his own backside, mean that he just falls further and further apart. I think that showing that the foibles of middle-aged men are often made worse by the refusal to come clean is probably a story that should be resonating rather hard in these days of Trump and Brexit.”

What The Butler Saw is at Theatre Royal Bath from the Monday, March 27 to Saturday, April 1. Tickets are available from theatreroyal.org.uk or 01225 448844.