What is the author's style in What the Butler Saw by Joe Orton?

What the Butler Saw exhibits all of the attributes of farce, but many critics have said that the play is in fact a parody of a farce. This means that Orton is imitating the form of farce in order to ridicule it. It is difficult to distinguish a farce from a parody of a farce, but some elements of Orton's play move it outside of the traditional form.

The absurd dialogue is also characteristic of farce. Throughout the play, the dialogue simply is not rational. Characters rarely say what one would expect them to say. Dr. Prentice remarks casually upon Mrs. Prentice's infidelities. Mrs. Prentice offers to introduce her husband to young men. Geral-dine says she will be delighted to test Dr. Prentice's new contraceptive device. Nick says that the guardian of the schoolgirls he molested reported him because he did not molest her. Much of this dialogue concerns sexual matters. Orton pokes fun at societal conventions by having his characters act as if such mores do not exist. The characters' dialogue is not meant to be realistic.

Orton uses the expected elements of traditional farce, but he also upsets some of those elements, and that is what causes some critics to call this play a parody of a farce. In traditional farce, for instance, there may be onstage violence, but the violence is generally bloodless and nobody really gets hurt. In What the Butler Saw, Sergeant Match and Nick are shot and bleed and Mrs. Prentice's hands are covered with blood. Also, traditional farce is characterized by a return to the accepted social order after all of the madness of the play has passed.