A FARCE TO BE RECKONED WITH

ROBIN USHER, THE AGE, 2 JUNE 2009

Peter Houghton has worked a mid-life crisis into his new show. But it's still funny, he tells Robin Usher.

REVIEW: OH THE HUMANITY, A COMMERCIAL FARCE

ALISON CROGGON, THEATRE NOTES, 14 JUNE 2009

"This sets out to be a very funny show, and it is. Like Eno, Houghton is interested in cliché, but his treatment is more violent: he simply pumps it up until it explodes... In A Commercial Farce, directed at the Malthouse by Aidan Fennessy, Houghton turns his laser wit onto commercial theatre. It’s as much homage as satire."

A COMMERCIAL FARCE | MALTHOUSE THEATRE

NIKKI THOMAS, AUSTRALIAN STAGE, 18 JUNE 2009

"The cliché jokes that are being directed and performed in the original farce cleverly begin to play out in Bill’s ‘real’ life. We become the audience he is wishing to impress, he becomes the fool he is seeking to direct. And that is the genius of Peter Houghton."

REVIEW: A COMMERCIAL FARCE | GLEN STREET THEATRE, SYDNEY

LLOYD BRADFORD SYKE, CRIKEY, 10 MARCH 2011

"The play within this play is, as its title is roughly indicative of, a commercial farce. It even harks back to what surely must be the original slapstick gag: slipping on a banana-skin. Peter Houghton is a hell of an actor. Turns out he’s a pretty dab hand when he’s got a pen in it too."