New Zealand playwright and actor April Phillips is flying to the UK for the British premiere of her outrageous farce STiFF at The Questors Theatre in Ealing.

The West London company is staging the ‘northern hemisphere premiere’ of the play after its success in New Zealand and Australia.

This quickfire comedy features a prostitute who inherits a funeral parlour – with suspenders, death by misadventure and unorthodox embalming techniques all part of the comedy fun.

Actor-playwright Phillips says, “There’s nothing like making people laugh. My acting career started out with bedroom farces – fast-paced situation comedies – and my writing has been directly influenced by these.”

Director Gareth Bevan describes STiFF as very, very funny. “It’s not often that you read a script which makes you laugh out loud, but that’s what happened when I first read STiFF.”

For its British premiere, The Questors are relocating the comedy to small-town Yorkshire. “It’s the kind of town where everyone knows each other’s business,” says director Bevan.

April Phillips will be meeting the director and actors a few days before the production opens.