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See How They Run is a play written in 1945 by Philip King. It is considered a farce for its screwball situations and humor, heavily playing on the old classic of mistaken identities.

The stage is set in a ridiculous-sounding parody of British town names. The lead character is Penelope Toop, the American wife of the local vicar, Lionel Toop. They employ Ida, a Cockney accented maid. Miss Skillon, a churchgoer of the parish and scald, stops by to gossip with the vicar and complain about the latest 'outrage' Penelope has caused. The real havoc breaks loose when Corporal Winton, an old friend of Penelope's in the American army, stops by to visit. In order to flout army regulations, he borrows Lionel's second best suit in order leave and go to see "Private Lives", pretending to be the vicar Humphrey who is coming to preach the guest sermon the next day. Along with this, Ida is trying to keep Miss Skillon from being seen in hr state of drunken stupor after drinking a bottle of cooking sherry. Meanwhile, a Russian P.O.W. from the nearby American military base has escaped, and needs to change his clothes to have any hope of escape. To add to the confusion, both Humphery, the guest speaker, as well as Penelope's uncle, the bishop of Lax, unexpectedly show up early. Confusion quickly abounds.

The play's original "villain," such that there was one, was an escaped Nazi soldier. The play was later updated to use a slightly more timely escaped Russian spy.

The Beatles used the sentence "See how they run" in two of its songs, "I am the Walrus" and "Lady Madonna"

• Website of a revival in the UK

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