Alan Ayckbourn's Official Website FAQs: Other Media Frequently Asked Questions: Film, Television & DVDs This page contains FAQs concerning Alan Ayckbourn on film, video and DVD. If there is a question not listed here which you feel should be listed, please contact the website via the Contact Us page. 1) Which Alan Ayckbourn plays have been adapted into films? 2) Which Alan Ayckbourn plays have been adapted for television? 3) Which of these adaptations have been made available commercially? 4) Is there a specific reason why so few of these adaptations have been made available? 5) Will Season's Greetings or any of the other filmed adaptations be released in the foreseeable future? 6) Has Alan ever written scripts specifically for film and / or television? 7) What was the connection between Alan Ayckbourn and the French film director Alain Resnais? 8) Is A Chorus Of Disapproval available to buy on video or DVD? 9) Where can I obtain the commercially released filmed adaptations of Alan Ayckbourn's plays? 1) Which Alan Ayckbourn plays have been adapted into films?

Michael Winner adapted A Chorus Of Disapproval, Malcolm Mowbray adapted The Revengers' Comedies and Alain Resnais adapted Intimate Exchanges into the two films Smoking / No Smoking as well as Private Fears In Public Places and Life Of Riley. 2) Which Alan Ayckbourn plays have been adapted for television? The following plays have been adapted for television in the UK: Absent Friends; Absurd Person Singular; Bedroom Farce; A Cut In The Rates; By Jeeves; Countdown; Ernie's Incredible Illucinations; Just Between Ourselves; Men On Women On Men; The Norman Conquests; Relatively Speaking (1969); Relatively Speaking (1989); The Revengers' Comedies; Season's Greetings; Time And Time Again; Way Upstream. A number of international adaptations have also been made for television. 3) Which of these adaptations have been made available commercially? Very few of the filmed adaptations have been made available commercially.

These are: The Norman Conquests; A Chorus Of Disapproval; The Revengers' Comedies; Smoking / No Smoking; By Jeeves; Private Fears In Public Places with Life Of Riley scheduled for a 2015 release. A complete list can be found at the foot of this page. 4) Is there a specific reason why so few of these adaptations have been made available? There is no obvious reason why the television adaptations have not been made available on DVD. In all likelihood it is a commercial decision by the TV film / producer, such as the BBC. Their release is not being blocked by Alan Ayckbourn and he has never expressed any opposition to them being made available commercially. 5) Will Season's Greetings or any of the other filmed adaptations be released commercially in the foreseeable future? At the present time, Alan Ayckbourn is not aware of any plans by the BBC in the foreseeable future to release Season's Greetings or any of the other film adaptations of his work onto DVD or digital download.

As mentioned in question 6, the decision to release these programmes on DVD is that of the commercial rights holder (in the case of Season's Greetings, this being the BBC), not Alan Ayckbourn; he has no opposition to films such as Season's Greetings, Absent Friends and Absurd Person Singular being made available commercially. 6) Has Alan ever written scripts specifically for film / and or television? Despite his love of cinema, Alan has never written an original screenplay for film, nor has he adapted any of his plays into filmed screenplays. Contrary to belief, Alan did not write the final screenplay of A Chorus Of Disapproval. Michael Winner adapted the play, this was then given to Alan who spent a day revising it and trying to restore elements which had been lost. This screenplay was then again adapted by Michael Winner into the final product which bears little resemblance to the original play or author's intentions. Alan has written just one screenplay for television. Service Not Included is a 30 minute piece, written for a BBC educational series. Alan also wrote a number of sketches for Ronnie Barker's comedy show Hark At Barker under the pseudonym of Peter Caulfield.

7) What was the connection between Alan Ayckbourn and the French film director Alain Resnais? The acclaimed French film director Alain Resnais was a long-term fan of Alan Ayckbourn's plays and, unknown to the playwright, had been making regular trips to the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round, Scarborough, during the 1980s to see his plays. In 1989 during the world premiere run of The Revengers' Comedies, Alan Ayckbourn was told by a member of the staff Resnais was in the audience - Alan disbelievingly replied "And Jean-Luc Goddard is in the toilet...'. The pair subsequently met for the first time and forged a long-standing and affectionate friendship. It was Alain Resnais who approached Alan Ayckbourn about adapting his plays into films - it's unlikely Alan would ever have believed Resnais would have been interested.

Alain initially asked to adapt the epic play-cycle Intimate Exchanges into the two films Smoking / No Smoking (Alan again noted the madness of this and Resnais couldn't possibly be meaning to film all 16 variations, to which Resnais apparently replied, of course not, just 12 of them...). He later adapted Private Fears In Public Places into the film Coeurs and Resnais's final film before his death in March 2014 was Aimer, Boire et Chanter (an adaptation of Life Of Riley). Prior to his death, Resnais was already working on a screenplay for his next project, an adaptation of Alan's play Arrivals & Departures. Of all the filmed adaptations of his work, Alan is most fond of the Resnais movies and believes they are the ones which remain most true to the plays. As to why Resnais's adaptations work so well, Alan has frequently noted he is a playwright who writes films for the stage and Resnais was a director who made plays for the screen. 8) Is A Chorus Of Disapproval available to buy on video or DVD?

A Chorus Of Disapproval, directed by Michael Winner, was released in the UK on a region 2 DVD on 7 May 2007. It was also released on video in 1991, but has long since been deleted. 9) Where can I obtain the commercially released filmed adaptations of Alan Ayckbourn's plays? The Ayckbourn Shop on this website contains links to amazon.co.uk for all filmed adaptations of Alan Ayckbourn's plays which are currently available either new or second-hand. Click here to visit The Ayckbourn Shop .

Alan Ayckbourn Films / TV Adaptations Released Commercially The Norman Conquests (VHS, 1980): Deleted The Norman Conquests (region 2 DVD, 2005): Deleted The Norman Conquests (region 1 DVD, 2011): Available The Norman Conquests (digital platforms - USA only, 2011): Available The Norman Conquests (region 2 DVD, 2014): Available A Chorus Of Disapproval (VHS, 1991): Deleted A Chorus Of Disapproval (region 2 DVD, 2007): Available Smoking / No Smoking (VHS, 1994): Deleted Smoking / No Smoking (region 2 DVD - France only, 2005): Available The Revengers' Comedies (VHS, 2001): Deleted Sweet Revenge (region 1 DVD, 2001): Deleted By Jeeves (VHS, 2001): Deleted By Jeeves (region 2 DVD, 2002): Available Private Fears In Public Places (region 1 / 2 DVD, 2007): Available Life

 Of Riley (blu-ray / dvd, digital platforms, 2015): Available Copyright: Simon Murgatroyd All material © Simon Murgatroyd or Alan Ayckbourn except where noted.

The header portrait of Alan Ayckbourn is by Andrew Higgins and should not be reproduced without permission. Contact Me Alan Ayckbourn - IMDb IMDb Writer | Director Alan Ayckbourn was born on April 12, 1939 in London, England. He is a writer and director, known for Private Fears in Public Places (2006), A Chorus of Disapproval (1989) and Smoking/No Smoking (1993). He has been married to Heather Stoney since 1997. He was previously married to Christine Helen Roland. See full bio » Born: Event Calendar - Relatively Speaking - 10/9/2014 - Weathervane Playhouse Weathervane Playhouse Running Oct. 9 to 26, 2014 PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE Thursdays — Oct. 9, 16 and 23 — at 7:30 p.m. Fridays — Oct. 10, 17 and 24 — at 8 p.m. Saturdays — Oct. 11, 18 and 25 — at 8 p.m. Sundays — Oct.

12, 19 and 26 — at 2:30 p.m. A comedy by Alan Ayckbourn Directed by Eileen Moushey In this British comedy set during the "swinging sixties," a complicated series of mistaken identities unravels for a young couple planning to get married. When the play starts, we meet a young “co-habiting couple,” Greg and Ginny, whose relationship, after only a month, is dwindling into a state of irritability. The naive Greg is hurt and perplexed not only by the unsolicited gifts arriving hourly at their apartment but by Ginny's decision to take off alone one Sunday — supposedly to see her parents in the country. In reality, Ginny is going to descend on the home of her married boss, Philip, to put an end to their affair. When Greg impulsively follows Ginny, the way is open to a dizzying series of misunderstandings: Greg assumes he is meeting his girlfriend's parents while Philip initially takes Greg to be the lover about whom his own wife, Sheila, has ostentatiously fantasized. From there, it’s mix-ups and mayhem all around!

AUDIENCE ADVISORY: Relatively Speaking, though written in 1965, is best enjoyed by audiences over the age of 13 due to its adult-oriented themes and plot points. ABOUT THE PLAY’S BACKGROUND It is no great exaggeration to say Relatively Speaking made an overnight success of Alan Ayckbourn and fundamentally changed his entire life. It is impossible to read the weight of glowing London notices without the realization that just one night marked the difference between a little-known writer becoming one of theatre’s hottest properties. Of course, the reality is Ayckbourn paid his dues over many years and neither he nor the play was quite the overnight phenomenon as is sometimes portrayed. Ayckbourn had been writing professionally for six years before he wrote Relatively Speaking. His first play, The Square Cat, was commissioned by the English theater director Stephen Joseph and produced at the Library Theatre, Scarborough, in 1959, and by 1963 Ayckbourn had produced another five plays.

In October 1964, Joseph asked Ayckbourn if he would "knock off something for our summer season — some jolly little comedy." Ayckbourn accepted the commission to write for Scarborough's Library Theatre and Joseph suggested the young writer attempt to craft a “well-made play.” Come February 1965, Joseph contacted Ayckbourn again to check on his progress and was met with “the usual cascade of unashamed lies about the unwritten work.” Ayckbourn’s response was the play was “fine” although he had not written a line of it. This situation remain unchanged when Joseph asked for a title for the play in April. Publicity leaflets were due to be printed, but Ayckbourn had still not given thought to a title. Joseph suggested Meet My Mother with Ayckbourn later asking if it could be altered to Meet My Father, which he felt sounded more dramatic. The problem was Ayckbourn was taken with Stephen’s suggestion he write a “well-made play.” Years later, Ayckbourn recalled that “It intrigued me as an exercise…I remember sitting down and trying to write a piece that was, if you like, actor-proof.

A play that would have a mechanism in it that would need only the slightest of pushes to make it work. In doing so I had to apply all my mind and technique to such an extent that I became very depressed. In fact, I kept putting it off.” With the practical deadline of rehearsals approaching in June, Alan began writing in mid-May. He had rented a small cottage in Collingham and there, with his wife and a neighbor's cat called Pamela who would come and sleep on the playwright's lap as he worked, he wrote the first draft of the play over three nights. “The devious plot was the result of sheer frenzy and the dialogue, of tearing haste. In just over a week the play was written aided by my wife's blue pencil, her constant suggestions and her cups of coffee.” Meet My Father opened at the Library Theatre on July 8, 1965, and was well-received by audiences and, more importantly, by the producer Peter Bridge, who optioned it for London and brought the director Nigel Patrick to see it.

Both were passionate about the play — with the caveat that it needed a new title, as Meet My Father was deemed "too provincial." Rehearsals for the London production began in January 1967, by which time the title had settled as Relatively Speaking and it was now a two- rather than a three-act play. On Feb. 21, the play began a short try-out tour at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, from where it would move to Edinburgh, Sheffield, Oxford, Leeds and Liverpool. Relatively Speaking opened at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London on March 29, 1967, and Ayckbourn braced himself for the reviews. He needn’t have worried, as the majority of critics fell over themselves to praise the production. Relatively Speaking would run for approximately a year in London for more than 350 performances, attracting such enthusiastic audience members as Noël Coward and even Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Phillip. The play has been revived twice in London (1986 and 2013), and the British Broadcasting Corporation produced two television adaptations (in 1969 and 1989).

In 1970, the play finally opened in America at Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut, with Joan Fontaine, sister of Olivia de Havilland, playing Sheila. ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT ALAN AYCKBOURN is an English writer and director. In America, he is sometimes referred to as “the British Neil Simon” — not so much for his comedic style but rather for his abundant output as a playwright. The year 2014 marks Alan’s 53rd year as a theatre director and his 55th as a playwright. He has spent his life in theatre, rarely if ever tempted by television or film, which perhaps explains why he continues to be so prolific. To date he has written 78 plays and his work has been translated into over 35 languages, is performed on stage and television throughout the world and has won countless awards. Weathervane Playhouse audiences may remember the playwright’s comedy Communicating Doors, which played on our Founders Theater stage in 2001.

In addition to Relatively Speaking, Ayckbourn’s major successes include How the Other Half Loves, Absurd Person Singular, Bedroom Farce, A Chorus of Disapproval and The Norman Conquests. In the past four years, there have been revivals of Season's Greetings and A Small Family Business at the National Theatre and in London’s West End productions of Absent Friends, A Chorus of Disapproval and Relatively Speaking. This year marks the 50th anniversary of his first West End production, Mr. Whatnot. In 2009, he retired as artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre (Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England), where almost all his plays have been and continue to be first staged. Holding the post for 37 years, he still feels that perhaps his greatest achievement was the establishment of this company’s first permanent home when the two-auditorium complex fashioned from a former Odeon Cinema opened in 1996.

In recent years, he has been inducted into American Theatre’s Hall of Fame, received the 2010 Critics’ Circle Award for Services to the Arts and became the first British playwright to receive both the Olivier Award and the Tony Award for Special Lifetime Achievement Awards. He was knighted in 1997 for services to the theatre. Source: Alan Ayckbourn's official website ( TICKET INFORMATION Alan Ayckbourn Essay - Ayckbourn, Alan - eNotes.com Alan Ayckbourn Essay - Ayckbourn, Alan Navigate Study Guiderows Alan Ayckbourn 1939- English playwright and lyricist. See also Alan Ayckbourn Criticism (Volume 5), and Volumes 8, 18. One of Great Britain's most popular and prolific playwrights, Ayckbourn is best known for his intricately plotted and inventively staged plays that explore daily middle-class life and marriage. In works that successfully balance tragic subject matter with comic events, Ayckbourn frequently centers on what he perceives as the monotony and emotional torment underlying his characters' lives and examines such themes as loneliness, unintentional cruelty and self-interest.

Biographical Information Ayckbourn was born April 12, 1939, in London. Influenced by his mother, a romance-fiction writer, Ayckbourn began writing at an early age. He attended Haileybury School in 1952, devoting most of his time to writing plays and acting. Ayckbourn toured with several repertory companies and worked as assistant stage manager before he began his relationship with the Studio Theatre Company in the small resort town of Scarborough. There Ayckbourn gained experience in all aspects of theater under the direction of Stephen Joseph, an innovative stage manager who had introduced the concept of theater-in-the-round to England. During this period, Ayckbourn wrote several light comedies that he had admittedly created as vehicles to advance his own acting career. Ayckbourn's first significant work, Standing Room Only (1961), which concerns a London bus driver and his family who are caught in a twenty-year traffic jam, is his only absurdist drama. After receiving harsh reviews for Xmas v. Mastermind (1962) and Mr.

Whatnot (1963), Ayckbourn took a financially secure position at the BBC in 1965, producing radio dramas while concurrently writing plays for the theater. His first success came when the farce Relatively Speaking (1967) opened in London to wide critical acclaim. Major Works Ayckbourn's prolific output prompted numerous critics to remark that his total number of plays now surpasses that of Shakespeare. Many of Ayckbourn’s plays present the foibles of middle-class married life within the structure of the “well-made” play. For example, in such early plays as Relatively Speaking (1967) and How the Other Half Loves (1969), Ayckbourn utilizes the conventions of mistaken identities and misunderstandings, complicated plots and precisely timed exits and entrances to humorously explore marital infidelities. How the Other Half Loves also presents a good example of how Ayckbourn uses staging techniques to transcend space and time. The play has two separate settings that are superimposed onstage so that actions occurring in different places at different times are seen simultaneously.

Time and Time Again (1971) and Absurd Person Singular (1972) mark the beginning of plays in which Ayckbourn created more fully developed characters in the context of what he termed “the truly hilarious dark play.” Absurd Person Singular, for instance, concerns three unhappily married couples who take turns entertaining one another on three successive Christmas Eves. One of the wives repeatedly attempts suicide by various ludicrous means in front of the other guests while they remain cruelly unaware of her pain. A Small Family Business (1987), which depicts the moral decline of an entire family through a series of humorous and complicated plot twists, is, nevertheless, noted for its unhappy conclusion: a drug-addicted daughter sits alone in her room injecting heroin while downstairs her family celebrates their entry into the drug trade. Continuing to emphasize the dark side of everyday existence, Woman in Mind (1985) charts the mental breakdown of Susan, the wife of a self-centered pastor. At first she fantasizes about an ideal family; however, her fantasy world eventually degenerates into uncontrollable hallucinations, and she is left utterly alone as her real family remains oblivious to her emotional needs.

Critical Reception Though Ayckbourn's reputation is based primarily on his ability to write entertaining comedies, most critics agree that his plays convey serious themes concerning the failures and tragedies of ordinary life as well as the moral and cultural decline of society. In particular, such plays as A Small Family Business and Woman in Mind not only depict the foibles of individuals, but are noted for addressing such social issues as drug abuse, the shortcomings Ayckbourn perceives in organized religion, and the manipulative qualities of the media, most evident in Man of the Moment (1988), in which a villainous character is made a hero by television journalists. Characterizing Ayckbourn's critical status, Michael Billington called him “the best comic dramatist since Molière,” while Peter Hall has asserted that, “in 100 years' time, when he's forgiven for being successful, people will read his plays as an accurate reflection of English life in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.

They represent a very important social document.” More Content: Ayckbourn, Alan (hide) Sir Alan Ayckbourn - Literature Literature Biography Sir Alan Ayckbourn was born in London in 1939, and has worked in theatre all his life. He has undertaken various roles including actor, writer and director, encouraged by his mentor Stephen Joseph, who founded the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. Almost all of his plays written to date have been first performed at this theatre, of which he was Artistic Director until his retirement in 2009, and many subsequently produced in the West End or at the National Theatre. A prolific writer of comedy plays satirising middle-class manners, he is considered one of the world's pre-eminent dramatists.

His first West End hit, Relatively Speaking (1968), opened in 1967, and major plays since have included Absurd Person Singular (1974); The Norman Conquests (1975); Bedroom Farce (1977); Just Between Ourselves (1978); A Chorus Of Disapproval (1985); Woman In Mind (1986); A Small Family Business (1987); Man Of The Moment (1990); Things We Do For Love (1998); Comic Potential (1999); Private Fears in Public Places (2004) and Roundelay (2014). He has won numerous awards for his plays, which have been translated into 35 languages, and are performed worldwide on stage and television. Seven of his plays have been performed on Broadway. Sir Alan Ayckbourn also writes plays for children and young people. These include Mr. A's Amazing Maze Plays (1989), Invisible Friends (1991) and The Boy Who Fell Into A Book (2000).

Gizmo (1999) was written for the British Telecom National Connections project, organised by the Royal National Theatre involving young people nationwide. Also an accomplished director of his own and other plays, works he has directed include A View From The Bridge, starring Michael Gambon, and the USA premiere of his and Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical, By Jeeves. Sir Alan Ayckbourn has received many honorary degrees, is Freeman of the Borough of Scarborough, was appointed CBE in 1987 and knighted for his services to theatre in 1997. His most recent play is Hero's Welcome (2015). Awards Critical perspective Alan Ayckbourn is a playwright of great prolificacy and facility. In 1974, when his play Absent Friends joined Absurd Person Singular (1974), Table Manners (1975), Living Together (1975) and Round And Round The Garden (1975) in the West End, he held the record for the most plays running there simultaneously.

Since then, a further 27 of his plays have been produced either in the West End, at the Royal National Theatre, by the Royal Shakespeare Company, or off Broadway. ‘Such facility is bound to stir critical suspicion’ wrote the critic Eric Shorter (Daily Telegraph, 17 June 1975), but it is not only the quantity of his output that is so remarkable. He is a brilliant comic writer, ‘one of the most consistent … in the history of English letters’ (Robin Thornber, The Guardian, September 1980), who over the years has continued to address important subjects and stage plays in the most inventive ways. In Taking Steps (1981), for example, three floors of a house share the same level of the stage. Things We Do For Love (1998) features three actual floors, though on one only ankles are visible, and on another only heads. Sisterly Feelings (1981) and Intimate Exchanges (1985)employ the device of alternative versions, while Way Upstream (1983) famously presents a real waterway and a moving boat capable of holding the entire cast.

‘Having worked in theatre, as a theatre person all my life, I do like to make use of the medium,’ he has said. The son of a violinist and a writer, who parted when he was still quite young, Ayckbourn joined Stephen Joseph’s ‘in the round’ company in Scarborough, in 1957, as an acting assistant stage manager. Joseph became a mentor and encouraged him to write, producing seven of his plays. His audiences at this time were largely ‘people who had had their holidays spoilt by rain’, a world away from the workshops and rehearsed readings of apprentice playwrights today. Ayckbourn’s breakthrough came with his seventh play, Relatively Speaking (1968). A comedy of misunderstandings and a peculiarly English politeness, with dialogue of beautiful simplicity and acute observation, it opened to critical acclaim in the West End in 1967 and ran for a year. How The Other Half Loves (1971) was an even bigger success, three years later; its setting, comprising half each of two identical apartments, an early example of his theatrical cleverness.

With Time and Time Again (1973), Ayckbourn began to dissect the fragility and unspoken sadness of the English middle-class home, ‘the everyday inhumanity of people to each other, especially within marriage and the family’ (Benedict Nightingale, An Introduction to 50 Modern British Plays, 1982). An underrated play, it features a sustained misunderstanding, two failed relationships, and a central character whose destructiveness arises from his passivity. All of these areas he has revisited, in particular the difficulties of relationships: ‘Mainly I want to say things about the fear and distrust people have for each other, the fact that men and women still don’t seem to understand each other very well’. In Henceforward (1987) and Comic Potential (1999), plays set in the future, the only happy relationships are between man and robot. As Jerome in Henceforward puts it: ‘If human beings behaved a bit less like human beings and a bit more like machines, we’d all be better off.’ In 1973, Ayckbourn wrote a trilogy of plays, The Norman Conquests, which came to the West End the following year.

In an extraordinary coup de theatre, he presented three plays with the same characters and the same events, each set in a different part of the home. In Norman, he created an enormously appealing antihero who was unafraid to kick against, even to demolish, the boundaries of polite society. With Just Between Ourselves (1978), his achievement was equally sure. This play, a comedy, charts a woman’s breakdown at the side of her utterly unaware husband. Vera spends the entire last act silent and motionless in her garden in winter, in a scene almost too painful to watch. Ten years later, Ayckbourn returned to the subject in Woman in Mind (1986), creating a world in which the audience views every part of the action through the deteriorating mind of its protagonist, a despairing vicar’s wife. In the mid-'eighties, he wrote a series of plays, starting with A Chorus Of Disapproval (1985), which showed the consequences of the failure of relationships within society at large.

In A Small Family Business (1987), for example, petty thieving leads, seemingly inexorably, to murder, and a character can say, quite plausibly: ‘If you’re going to be a criminal, you’ve got to have some sort of brain, haven’t you? I mean, any fool can be honest, can’t they?’ The theatre critic Michael Billington has written of Ayckbourn’s ‘limitless capacity for surprise… Instead of repeating old formulas, he is constantly taking off in new directions’ (Country Life, 7 June 1990). Since then the playwright has written, amid a great deal else, two plays exploring time travel (Time Of My Life, 1993 and Communicating Doors, 1995); a ghost story (Haunting Julia, in Plays 3, 2005); musicals; more than a dozen children’s plays; and two plays (House and Garden, both 2000) performed by the same cast playing the same characters in two auditoria simultaneously.

He also wrote a play with 54 short scenes (Private Fears In Public Places, in Plays 3, 2005), which in 2005 became a cult hit off Broadway. Ayckbourn has won more than 40 awards, and was knighted in 1997. Despite everything he has achieved, he may be forgiven for feeling that, because he has chosen to write comedies, his talents are still underrated. ‘We’re an odd nation,’ he wrote once. ‘Secretly I suspect we don’t really believe we’re seeing anything worthwhile unless we’ve had a really miserable time.’ Or, as Chandler Tate says in Comic Potential : ‘Tragedy? You can get that in the street being run over. If it makes you laugh, treasure it.’ Alan Ayckbourn's Official Website Peter King, David Jarrett and Catherine Naish in the world premiere (1965). Copyright: Scarborough Theatre Trust David Jarrett & Joanna Tope in the world premiere (1965). Copyright: Scarborough Theatre Trust Jennifer Hilary and Richard Briers in the London premiere (1967).

Copyright: Houston Rogers Michael Hordern & Celia Johnson in the London premiere (1967). Copyright: Houston Rogers Donald Sinden & Ceila Johnson in the 1969 BBC television adaptation. Copyright: BBC Robert Austen and Alison Skilbeck in Alan Ayckbourn's 1977 revival. Copyright: Scarborough Theatre Trust Diane Bull & Robin Herford in Alan Ayckbourn's 1977 revival. Copyright: Scarborough Theatre Trust Promotional postcard for the BBC's 1989 television adaptation. Copyright: BBC Katie Foster-Barnes and Eileen Battye in Alan Ayckbourn's 2007 revival. Copyright: Tony Bartholomew Katie Foster-Barnes and Philip York in Alan Ayckbourn's 2007 revival. Copyright: Tomny Bartholomew Max Bennett, Felicity Kendal & Jonathan Coy in the 2013 West End revival. Copyright: Tristram Kenton Kara Tointon in the 2013 West End revival. Copyright: Tristram Kenton Robert Powell & Liza Goddard in the 2016 tour.

Copyright: Nobby Clark Antony Eden & Lindsey Campbell in the 2016 tour. Copyright: Nobby Clark All images are copyright of the respective photographer / organisation and should not be reproduced without permission of the copyright holder. Relatively Speaking: Background It is no great exaggeration to say Relatively Speaking made an overnight success of Alan Ayckbourn and fundamentally changed his entire life. It is impossible to read the weight of glowing London notices without the realisation that just one night marked the difference between a little-known writer becoming one of theatre’s hottest properties. Of course, the reality is Alan paid his dues over many years and neither he nor the play were quite the overnight phenomenon sometimes portrayed. Alan Ayckbourn had been writing professionally for six years before he wrote Relatively Speaking. His first play, The Square Cat , was commissioned by Stephen Joseph and produced at the Library Theatre , Scarborough, in 1959 and by 1963 he had produced another five plays. Yet the success of Relatively Speaking is even more remarkable considering the events surrounding its immediate predecessor, Mr Whatnot . Mr Whatnot was premiered at the Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent, in 1963.

It was a well-received romantic-comedy with a mute lead character and an enormously complex sound plot. It was an unusual piece which required delicate handling that was not present when it transferred to the New Arts Theatre in London on 5 August 1964. Despite featuring the popular comedian Ronnie Barker, Alan’s first West End play was met with some merciless notices and closed two weeks later. Deeply upset by the experience, Alan considered stopping writing for good. Perversely, his biggest failure paved the way to success. In the immediate aftermath of Mr Whatnot, Alan contacted his agent Margaret Ramsay, better known as Peggy. Coincidentally she was meeting the renowned Northern radio producer Alfred Bradley , who suggested Alan apply for a post as Radio Drama Producer at the BBC studios in Leeds. Successful in the interview, Alan accepted the job and began working at the BBC in December 1965, entering "that great paternalistic womb for the wounded to crawl into". There to “lick his wounds” and with “no thought of writing again - certainly not for London or the stage.” The Library Theatre's Artistic Director - and Alan's most influential mentor - Stephen Joseph had other ideas.

In October 1964, after Alan's interview with the BBC but before he began working for the organisation, Stephen rang Alan up ostensibly to congratulate him on the new job but to also ask if he would "knock off something for our summer season - some jolly little comedy." Alan accepted the commission to write for the Scarborough venue and Stephen suggested the young writer attempt to craft a ‘well-made play’. Come February 1965, Stephen contacted Alan again to check on progress and was met with “the usual cascade of unashamed lies about the unwritten work.” Alan’s response was the play was “fine” although he had not written a line of it; a situation unchanged when Stephen asked for a title for the play in April. Publicity leaflets were due to be printed, but Alan had still not given thought to a title - never mind the play! Stephen suggested Meet My Mother with Alan later asking if it could be altered to Meet My Father, which he felt sounded more dramatic (an alternative version of the creation of the title can be found in Behind The Scenes ). The problem with writing the script though was that Alan was taken with Stephen’s suggestion he write a ‘well-made play’: “It intrigued me as an exercise….

I remember sitting down and trying to write a piece that was, if you like, actor-proof. A play that would have a mechanism in it that would need only the slightest of pushes to make it work. In doing so I had to apply all my mind and technique to such an extent that I became very depressed. In fact, I kept putting it off.” With the practical deadline of rehearsals approaching in June, Alan began writing in mid-May. He had rented a small cottage in Collingham and there, with his wife and a neighbour's cat called Pamela who would come and sleep on the playwright's lap as he worked, he wrote the first draft of the play over three nights. “The devious plot was the result of sheer frenzy and the dialogue, of tearing haste. In just over a week the play was written aided by my wife's blue pencil, her constant suggestions and her cups of coffee.” Alan felt the resulting play was actually rather “easy and glib. In fact I was rather ashamed of it.” Despite his unhappiness with the piece, it was submitted to Stephen. Alan avoided Stephen for a week, convinced the director would not like the play either.

When the pair did eventually collide, Stephen’s unexpected comment was “You’ve written a very funny play.” It didn’t alter Alan’s perception of it. Stephen did cut the play for the opening night at the Library Theatre on 8 July 1965, although Alan made light of the alterations: “When he [Stephen Joseph] found it was over-running, characteristically he just tore the middle pages out at random. Despite this, it seemed to work.” The play may have been edited (in fact, a quarter of the script was cut by Stephen - see Behind The Scenes ), but it was essentially still the same play which manages to stretch credibility - and essentially one joke - to absolute breaking point without snapping. Meet My Father was well-received by audiences and, more importantly, by the producer Peter Bridge, who optioned it for London and brought the director Nigel Patrick to see it in Scarborough. Both were passionate about the play - with the caveat it needed a new title as Meet My Father was deemed "too provincial" as well as a new first scene.

Although Bridge had seen Stephen Joseph's edited version of the script in Scarborough, Alan went back to his original manuscript largely ignoring Stephen's revisions as he honed the script into the taut comedy that exists today. Not only did he work on and substantially alter the first act, but he also altered the climax; although not to its final form. As for the title, that too had changed. A statement for royalties dated 26 August 1965 declares: “Meet My Father now called Taken For Granted.” Patently this was not the eye-catching title desired as the title soon reverted back to Meet My Father. A draft of the play dated 18 April 1966 has Meet My Father and Taken For Granted crossed out with Father’s Day in its place. It would be the better part of a year before a satisfactory title was found. Peter Bridge began the process of transferring the play to London, initially hoping to attract the actors Alec McCowen and Lynn Redgrave.

Nigel Patrick, who had agreed to direct in August 1965, soon asked Alan for alterations to the script, not least moving the first scene to the afternoon - it was bizarrely argued audiences would be offended if a young, unmarried couple woke up together in the morning! Alan agreed to change the time - although it eventually reverted back, restoring an Aristotelean form to the play - but stood up to further cuts. On 10 August 1965, Bridge confirmed he had a leading man in Richard Briers, a rising star of television who felt the play the best thing he had read. Joan Greenwood had turned down the role of Sheila feeling it too slight, which opened the door for the much admired actress Celia Johnson to step in. Bridge was pushing for Hugh Williams to play Philip, but found a suitable compromise in Michael Hordern. The remarkable cast was rounded off by Jennifer Hilary as Ginny and rehearsals began in January 1967, by which time the title had settled as Relatively Speaking and it was now a two rather than a three act play.

On 21 February, the play began a short try-out tour at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, from where it would move to Edinburgh, Sheffield, Oxford, Leeds and Liverpool. The opening night of the tour - and arguably the play’s profile - was given a welcome boost by Jennifer Hilary’s legs, which were featured in several national newspapers the next day. Allegedly, Nigel Patrick decided at the last minute the hemline on Jennifer’s dressing gown was too high and an extra button should be sewn on. Memorably he was quoted as saying: “Don’t let the audience see too much of your legs or they’ll miss half the dialogue.” It’s hard not to be cynical and offer plaudits to whoever was marketing the play for coming up with this story. The script was still evolving and a crucial alteration took place during the tour. Tom Erhardt, an employee of Peter Bridge and Alan’s agent between 1991 and 2013, suggested the play should finish where it began, with the slippers.

Alan, never happy with how the play had ended, liked the suggestion and altered it to the now familiar climax which both aggravates Philip’s doubts about Sheila’s infidelity and suggests Ginny has had other affairs. Relatively Speaking opened at the Duke Of York’s Theatre, London, on 29 March 1967 and Alan - following the experiences of Mr Whatnot - braced himself for the reviews. He needn’t have worried, the majority of critics fell over themselves to praise the production. True, it was considered insubstantial and slight, but this did not stop the plaudits for the quality of the piece; Alan’s dialogue, Nigel Patrick’s direction and the cast were rewarded with high praise. The night before, Alan Ayckbourn had been a virtual unknown in London; on 30 March he was a star as his mother, Mary James - better known as Lolly - recalled: “He took me to see it on the second night and in the interval we went for a drink. As we made our way to the bar, there were dozens of pressmen and photographers who surrounded Alan. He looked back and said, 'Lolly, I'm sorry,' and I went back to my seat to wait for him.

When he came back, I said, 'It was wonderful, wasn't it?' He said, 'Yes, I'm still laughing. I can't believe it!'" Alan’s fortunes had turned and the play would continue to generate excellent reviews in the coming weeks as the periodicals were published. The play made impressions elsewhere too: on 2 May, a telegram arrived at the BBC purporting to be from Noël Coward. Alan wasn’t convinced it was genuine as there was 14 shillings (70p) postage to pay and he crumpled it up and there it away, certain it was a hoax. It was genuine though and, fortunately, he retrieved the telegram which read: “Dear Alan Ayckbourn all my congratulations on a beautifully constructed and very very funny comedy I enjoyed every moment of it = Noël Coward.” (see Behind The Scenes ) On top of this, the play became the first Ayckbourn to be visited by royalty when the Daily Mail reported HRH The Queen and Prince Phillip had seen the play on 22 May and sat in the 14th row of the stalls; the first of many visits to West End productions of Alan's plays.

On television, BBC1 screened Relatively Speaking - actually a 50 minute selection of scenes recorded from the West End production in July 1967 which Peter Bridge reported had been seen in 2.5m homes; this is now considered the first television broadcast of an Ayckbourn play. Relatively Speaking would run for approximately a year in London for more than 350 performances, although not without complications. On 23 January, Peter Bridge wrote to Peggy noting “losses have been enormous” in recent weeks and the play should have closed in December. Peggy’s response to the play losing £1,000 a week was that a more experienced producer would have closed the play earlier rather than try to milk it dry; the play's original company had been replaced with Judy Campbell, Colin Gordon, Philip Guard and Polly Adams, which may well have contributed to the drop-off in business. This did not stop Bridge launching a tour on 6 February 1968 directed by Donald Sinden, featuring Evelyn Laye (Sheila), Raymond Francis (Philip), John Carlisle (Greg) and Anne Lawson (Ginny).

Demand for the play from repertory theatres was huge too and the first repertory production opened at the Richmond Theatre on 8 April 1968 (featuring Rex Garner as Philip, who would create the role of Uncle Val 25 years later in Alan’s play Sugar Daddies ). Peter Bridge noted in July 1968 that 34 productions of the play had already been booked and the play became the first of Alan’s to be published. Still unsatisfied with the play, Alan had continued to revise the first act even after the West End production had opened; this led to several repertory companies requesting (and being denied) the West End version of the play as opposed to what is now considered the definitive version of the play. The play was published, after many frustrating delays, by Evans Plays. It was a problematic edition though as, despite being intended as a play-script for performance, it lacked lighting and sound plots and only had a props list for the first scene! It later transpired Evans had also destroyed the only surviving prompt copy of the script in publishing the play. Despite Evans arguing this was normal practise, Peggy was livid and Alan had to prepare his own prompt script when Samuel French Inc.

published the play in America in 1970. The American producer Saint Subber expressed interest in the play in July 1967, beginning a prolonged, convoluted and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to open the play on Broadway. Subber had interested the actress Myrna Loy in relaunching her theatrical career on the back of Relatively Speaking, although both felt the play needed work to be successful in America. The writer Muriel Resnick was hired to Americanise the script. The result was a breath-taking rewrite which Alan complained contained "vast alterations both to dialogue and plot and… made nobody very happy - least of all me." He recalls much of the dialogue becoming hippy-speak: "There is a line which reads: 'I can't say I'm very taken with this marmalade'. Adapted, it came out as 'This marmalade is a freakout.’" The action was relocated to America and Sheila’s role was greatly increased at the insistence of Myrna Loy. Resnick had apparently never seen the actual play and Peter Bridge noted the first scene had been decimated, Ginny had become totally unsympathetic and there was no indication she and Greg were in love!

Alan hated the rewrite and Peggy was concerned the best interests of the play were not being served, while the American contingent argued the new script did not disturb the "fabric and work of the original". With tensions running high and pressure being put on Alan to extend Subber’s option on the play, Alan and Peggy decided to let it die a death. Possibly sensing what was happening, Myrna Loy pulled out prior to this and it was argued the production was now impractical due to a review of the London production by Kenneth Tynan in The New Yorker which commented: "an atavistic country-house comedy written with the sort of smirking cuteness that often accompanies a punning title…. The company was led by Celia Johnson and Michael Hordern, who rowed furiously like stoical scullers trapped in a water-logged skiff." That Tynan is at odds with practically every other critic (and no matter the quality of the play, arguably the fact it was intended as pure entertainment instantly relegated it below Tynan’s well-known sensibilities anyway) made no odds, the project collapsed and Relatively Speaking would not be produced professionally in New York until 1984. A similar fate met a proposed film adaptation.

On 22 June 1967, Peggy received a letter from Warren Brown, the London Story Editor for Universal Pictures, confirming interest in Relatively Speaking. Peggy was enthusiastic, but ongoing Broadway negotiations were a stumbling block, as should the play successfully open on Broadway, the value of the film rights would increase substantially. 20th Century Fox and Paramount were soon also eager to acquire the rights and Peggy told Peter Bridge she was inclined to ask for £30,000 from Universal plus profit participation. Universal offered £30,000 and limited profit participation. Disappointed, not least because Cary Grant had expressed interest in the role of Philip, Peggy advised Alan to wait for a Broadway opening, which led interest in a film adaptation to quickly fade away. Several years later, Alan himself adapted the play into a screenplay in the early 1970s as a result of interest from the producer Clive Donner. Although keeping the brunt of the play intact, it was substantially expanded to include the first meeting between Ginny and Greg with expanded scenes between Ginny and Philip and a solution to the play's major plot loose end of what happened to the love letters between the pair of them.

The screenplay survives in private collections in several different drafts but was never produced as a film. Years later, Alan would note that he wasn't very happy with the screenplay and that he had taken it too far beyond the original play: "[I] felt on reflection that that particular version of the play merely inflated it without adding anything much except a few extraneous visual gags." Relatively Speaking was destined for television however as the BBC adapted it in 1969. Celia Johnson agreed to reprise her role of Sheila and was joined by Donald Sinden (Philip), Judy Cornwell (Ginny) and John Stride (Greg). It was broadcast on 2 March 1969 on BBC1, but the quality of the piece is unknown as no copies of the film are known to have survived in archive; although Peggy was unimpressed. Directed by Herbert Wise - who would later direct the television adaptation of The Norman Conquests - it ran for 90 minutes and marked the first time an Ayckbourn play had been adapted for television.

Uniquely among Alan’s plays, this is the only play to be adapted twice for television by the BBC; or even three times if you include the original 1967 West End recording. On Christmas Eve 1989, BBC2 screened another version of the play this time starring Nigel Hawthorne (Philip), Gwen Watford (Sheila), Imogen Stubbs (Ginny) and Michael Maloney (Greg). The play has also been adapted for television in Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. A BBC Radio adaptation was first broadcast on 25 December 1975 with Michael Aldridge (Philip), Rosemary Leach (Sheila), Nigel Patrick (Greg) and Joanna Wake (Ginny), which was commercially released as a double-bill with Alan's play Season’s Greetings in 1988. Producing the play in America had proven problematic, but no such troubles affected it in Europe, where it proved to be extremely popular and was translated into numerous languages. Germany’s affection for Ayckbourn plays began here with 51 productions of the play by 1974 alone.

By the end of 1967, negotiations were also well under way for a major production in Australia, which opened on 20 March 1968 at the Phillip Theatre in Sydney; Alan’s success was now global. In 1970, there would be two quietly significant moments in the play’s life. The play finally opened in America at Westport Country Playhouse, Connecticut, on 10 August with Joan Fontaine, sister of Olivia de Havilland, playing Sheila. Alan Ayckbourn also directed the play for the first time in an amateur production for Leeds Art Theatre, for whom he had also directed Mr Whatnot in 1968. Alan would not direct Relatively Speaking professionally until its 1977 revival in Scarborough. This Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round production had a notable cast of Robin Herford (Greg), Diane Bull (Ginny), Robert Austin (Philip) and Alison Skilbeck (Sheila).

Alan would revive the play again at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in 2007, making it only the third of Alan’s plays alongside Time And Time Again and Absurd Person Singular to be performed at all three Scarborough in-the-round venues (although only the latter two plays were directed by Alan in all three venues). The play continues to be popular with major UK tours in 2012 - with Lindsay Posner directing and Felicity Kendal taking the role of Sheila - and 2016, the latter directed by Robin Herford. In 1986, Greenwich Theatre staged a revival of Relatively Speaking to mark its 21st anniversary with experienced Ayckbourn director Alan Strachan at the helm. He directed a well-received production at the Greenwich Theatre which featured Michael Aldridge (Philip), Gwen Watford (Sheila), Michael Simkins (Greg) and Felicity Dixon (Ginny). In 2013, Lindsay Posner's 2012 revival of Relatively Speaking was brought into the West End with a three month run at the Wyndham's Theatre; the first West End production of the play since its original London production in 1967.

Well-received, it demonstrated the play had stood the test of the time and deserved its place as one of the Ayckbourn classics. The impact and effect of Relatively Speaking has never been forgotten and the play is amongst the most popular and fondly remembered of Alan’s plays. A fact which Alan sometimes finds slightly depressing. "I tend to wince even now when people say that this is still the best thing I've written." Alan Ayckbourn Copyright: Simon Murgatroyd. Please do not reproduce without permission of the copyright holder. The Relatively Speaking section of Alan Ayckbourn's Official Website is sponsored by Michael T. Mooney All material © Simon Murgatroyd or Alan Ayckbourn except where noted. Portrait of Alan Ayckbourn by Andrew Higgins. Contact Me Alan Ayckbourn - Central Square Theater Central Square Theater Artists & Audiences Creating Theater Vital to Our Communities Primary Menu Meet the team Alan Ayckbourn Alan Ayckbourn This year marks Mr. Ayckbourn’s 52nd year as a theatre director and his 54th as a playwright.

He has spent his life in theatre, rarely if ever tempted by television or film, which perhaps explains why he continues to be so prolific. To date he has written 77 plays and his work has been translated into over 35 languages, is performed on stage and television throughout the world and has won countless awards. Major successes include: Relatively Speaking, How the Other Half Loves, Absurd Person Singular, Bedroom Farce, A Chorus of Disapproval and The Norman Conquests. The National Theatre recently revived his 1980 play Season’s Greetings to great acclaim and the past year alone has seen West End productions of Absent Friends and A Chorus Of Disapproval. In 2009, he retired as artistic director of the Stephen Joseph, where almost all his plays have been and continue to be first staged. Holding the post for 37 years, he still feels that perhaps his greatest achievement was the establishment of this company’s first permanent home when the two auditoria complex fashioned from a former Odeon Cinema opened in 1996.

In recent years, he has been inducted into American Theatre’s Hall of Fame, received the 2010 Critics’ Circle Award for Services to the Arts and become the first British playwright to receive both Olivier and Tony Special Lifetime Achievement Awards. He was knighted in 1997 for services to the theatre. Alan Ayckbourn's Official Website World premiere: Library Theatre, Scarborough (1972) Click on image to download programme West End premiere: Criterion Theatre (1973) New York premiere: The Music Box (1974) Revival: Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round, Scarborough (1989) Click on image to doenload programme West End Revival: Whitehall Theatre (1990) New York Revival: Manhattan Theatre Club (2005) West End revival: Garrick Theatre (2007) 40th anniversary revival: Chichester Festival Theatre (2012) All images are copyright of the respective organisation. Absurd Person Singular: Quotes by Alan Ayckbourn "In Absurd Person Singular I've tried to explore people a little more, and at the same time to cut back some of the high jinks.

When I'd written it someone said 'What's the second act? ' I said ' It's about a woman committing suicide'. But it's a farce situation because nobody knows that she is. She puts her head in the oven and they think she's trying to clean it. And they're all trying to help, and all for the wrong reasons. You have to be careful if you're going to write about suicide, but it's funny if you see why they're doing it, and feel sorry for them. One of the great touchstones for me is whether I feel for them. I've got at least to love them while I'm writing them, and understand why they're like they are." (Plays And Players, September 1972) Regarding the Broadway production of the play: "They [the producers] had this idea that it should have a guaranteed number of laughs, and they had two men sitting in the house, counting them. The laughs. No, really - and they got in touch with me and said, "There are 92 laughs in the first act and 75 in the second, but only 51 in the third.

What do you make of this?" I said, "Well, I make out that the third act is not as funny as the first." And they said, "What are you going to do about it?" And I said, "It's not supposed to be as funny, so if they're not getting laughs, I must come over and congratulate the cast."* (The Washington Star, 22 February 1976) * To find out more about the Broadway production of Absurd Person Singular and the laugh-count saga, click here . "Sidney is the hero of Absurd Person Singular in the sense that he's the central link in the plays. I have certainly not written him as contemptible as I feel that this was to impose a view on a character who should be allowed to speak and if necessary condemn himself out of his own mouth. The play does indeed make the point that, in contemporary society, the really determined and ruthless man will succeed where other nicer and probably less profit-motivated people won't. Practically all the other characters have the virtue of feeling (although Ronald has totally opted out of anything). Marion cares, Geoffrey is weak and vain but ultimately has a few rather feeble liberal views and Eva feels.

Certainly Sidney's way is the way to worldly success. But not much else. But then a man like Sidney wouldn't realise that there was anything else." (Personal correspondence, March 1976) "I rather revel in my character's defects! In a play like Absurd Person Singular, they all have horrendous flaws. It's a rather cynical statement which says that if you're a person who so lacks imagination, and any feeling for your fellow men, and concentrate purely on the profit motive, then you'll probably finish up a very rich worldly success, but also be a very awful person. And if you're at all vulnerable or feeling, or at all weak in your relationships with people, you won't finish up very successful, although you'll be a nice person. What I'm saying is 'cursed are the meek.'" (Liverpool Echo, August 1976) "I like to have a problem, because I think it takes care of one aspect of the play. Take Absurd Person Singular.

I had the theme of the ascendancy of one couple and the decline of the other two, set it in the sitting room, started off as normal, and I think in terms of content it was quite interesting - you know, I'd got the couples sketched rather well. But there was an edge missing off it, and by transferring it into the kitchens - setting it backstage, as it were - one got an additional angle on it, which made it much more interesting. I think it lifted it from being a reasonable play into a better play. I do like to charge things. People assume that theatre is a very good medium just for people sitting down and discussing. Having worked in theatre, as a theatre person all my life, I do love to make use of the medium." (Municipal Entertainment, May 1978) "The middle act of Absurd Person Singular is sometimes a trap, but one should bear in mind that all the characters are in their own terms acting totally logically. Leave it to us, the audience, to laugh, if we see the funny side; and leave it to the dramatist, if he's done his job properly, to point the absurdity.

The actors don't need to react; they can continue to play their own role within that scene... there's still a woman trying to kill herself, which she is still quite serious about, and there's still a man trying to unblock a sink. What turns an audience off, I think, is when actors are in effect saying 'Aren't I funny?'" (Amateur Stage, 1978) "Dramatically, Eva's suicide scene is one of my first experiments in the use of dramatic counterpoint, i.e. using a deeply serious action against a background of comic events (or is it the other way around?) Both serving to strengthen the other but hopefully neither selling the other short. Jane is just as serious about cleaning her oven as Eva is to commit suicide. It's all a question of priorities." (Personal correspondence, 14 February 1987) "I started by setting it in a sitting room, but it got desperately boring very quickly." (Scarborough Evening News, 13 December 1989) "It was originally intended as a slightly veiled attack on the get-rich-quick society which has got even worse since then.

It seems even more relevant today that it did when I first wrote it." (Bishops Stortford Gazette, 16 February 1990) "Offstage characters often add depth to a play - it's like a perspective device in painting. Dick and Lottie helped enlarge the world of Sidney and Jane - not just in the first act but throughout the play. Even in Act III, though absent, they've managed to steal Ronald and Marion's sons away (Well, they probably went willingly!)" (Personal correspondence, 23 January 1996) "I wanted to write about the fact we can never take anything for granted. That fortunes do change rapidly, that the dedicated fiercely ambitious money-maker who eschews any form of emotional tie (Sidney) can usually make it over the rest of his kind, weighed down as they are by the baggage of emotional involvement. I leave the audience to judge which is preferable." (Personal correspondence, 23 January 1996) "My late agent, the great eccentric Peggy Ramsay, hated me writing plays set at Christmas.

'Oh Alan,' she'd say, 'not another bloody Christmas play.' But I'd explain to her that Christmas was a gift to a dramatist. You're always looking for a reason to stick a group of people together who can't stand each other, aren't you? Dinner parties are good, but what better time than Christmas? You've got three days together and there's always bound to be at least a cousin no one can stand. I've seen it at my own Christmases - two relatives arguing bitterly over who should sit in which chair." (The Guardian, 20 December 2007) "We were in a lift up to Michael Codron’s office and I suddenly said ‘Absurd Person Singular. That’s a good title.’ I hadn’t got a play! And then I wrote a play a couple of years later and thought: this is Absurd Person Singular." (Tea For Two with Alan Ayckbourn and Richard Derrington, Stephen Joseph Theatre, 24 July 2008) “I’m really showing how sad it is that people can try to be nice and that it sometimes doesn’t work.

I’m saying that a lot of the worst things that happen in life are the result of well-meaning actions.” (Personal correspondence) “Despite its enormously long running time that [first] night - I think our technical staff were stretched to their limits creating three kitchens on the first floor of a library - it remains one of the most successful first performances of mine that I’ve ever not sat through. It was, I suppose, particularly satisfying because it was the first time I’d ever had the courage, as a writer, to weave some slightly darker threads in amongst the comic tapestries. In fact, the first time I allowed the characters their own destinies rather than like, say, the puppet master I’d been in Relatively Speaking to dictate their destinies. It’s ironic in retrospect that having voluntarily given up that role as a writer, I handed it to one of the characters, Sidney Hopcroft. “The play also contains two of my own personal favourite offstage characters, Dick & Lottie Potter. I always feel that whatever criticisms may be levelled at me now and in years to come, in my defence I can say that at least I left the Potters in the wings. This was not always the case.

When I first started the play it was intended that it should be set in the sitting rooms of the three households. After only a few pages, along with the rest of my characters, I fled to the kitchen in order to escape the awful Potters.” (Source to be confirmed) "The title was something I'd thought of in a lift. I've read theses justifying it and thought: "Oh God, I don't want to tell them it was just an accident."" (The Guardian, 19 March 2012) "It's a running joke that I never change anything in a script during rehearsals. But when we first put Absurd Person Singular in front of an audience - a three-act play, with two intervals, in a tiny room in a library, with no bar - I thought: "We can't ask them to sit through that again. I don't want to sit through that again." So I cut it, and the play became a hit." (The Guardian, 19 March 2012) Copyright: Alan Ayckbourn All material © Simon Murgatroyd or Alan Ayckbourn except where noted. Portrait of Alan Ayckbourn by Andrew Higgins.

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Question: Who wrote the plays 'Relatively Speaking' and 'Absent Person Singular'?
Answer: ALAN AYCKBOURN