Every Good Boy Deserves Favour

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is a stage play by Tom Stoppard. It was first performed in 1977.

The play was written at the request of André Previn and was inspired by a meeting with Russian exile Viktor Fainberg . The play calls for a small cast, but also a full orchestra, which not only provides music throughout the play (composed by Previn) but also forms an essential part of the action. The play concerns a dissident under an oppressive regime (obviously meant to be taken for a Soviet controlled state) who is imprisoned in a mental hospital, from which he will not be released until he admits that his statements against the government were caused by a (non-existent) mental disorder.

The title derives from the popular mnemonic used by music students to remember the notes on the lines of the Treble clef

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Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is also the title of an album by The Moody Blues.