The William Morris Institute of Automation Research is working hard to simplify our lives by programming computers to carry out life’s routine tasks. Whether it’s resolving ethical dilemmas, writing pornographic novels, saying prayers, or watching sports, these automation experts are developing machines to handle it all, enabling us to enjoy more free time. And when it’s announced that the Queen will be paying a royal visit and the Institute’s madcap bunch of researchers decide to program the computers to receive her, what could possibly go wrong?

Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, The Tin Men (1965) is the brilliantly comic first novel from Michael Frayn, author of the Booker Prize-nominated Headlong, Spies, and Skios, and Noises Off, ‘the funniest farce ever written’ (NY Times). This 50th anniversary reissue features a new introduction by the author.