Kaufman and Hart's fast-paced comedy is set in motion when Sheridan Whiteside, an acid-tongued, world-famous radio personality and critic modeled on Alexander Woollcott, slips on the icy front steps of a modest Ohio family's home and is confined to a wheelchair in their living room for weeks of recuperation. What follows is a hilarious invasion as Whiteside commandeers the household, filling it with a parade of eccentric visitors, telegrams from Hollywood stars, an octopus, and penguins, while dispensing withering insults and meddling shamelessly in the private lives of the long-suffering Stanley family who can neither move him nor get rid of him. Complications multiply when Whiteside's loyal secretary Maggie falls for a local newspaperman, prompting the jealous, controlling Whiteside to scheme, not entirely successfully, to sabotage the romance and keep her at his side. The comedy's rapid volleys of insult comedy and its parade of larger-than-life supporting characters, including thinly veiled caricatures of real celebrities of the day, made it one of the most quotable and beloved American comedies. Its central role remains one of the great comic showcases in the theatrical repertoire, prized for its sheer verbal ferocity.

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