In 1976, Mike Nichols wanted Paul Davis to create a poster for his latest play; however, Davis was under contract to The Public Theater in New York. He recommended James McMullan for the job despite knowing that he had no experience in that medium. The result is a poster that changed how people viewed theater advertising. The play develops over the course of an evening during which working-class British men enrolled in a standup-comedy course attempt to impress a talent scout. Some pander to expected misogynistic and racist humor to get the job, while others fall flat working through their own more subtle material. The final comic—played by Jonathan Pryce in his first Broadway role—sounds off in a rambling diatribe that is as disconcerting as it is biting. Working from a photograph of the British production, McMullan put Pryce in a cheap tuxedo, angling his body in manic, doubled-over laughter while he attacks the microphone. McMullan would evoke a similar uneasy atmosphere in many subsequent theater posters.