In this third volume of his collected plays, Alan Ayckbourn takes his signature acerbic wit into the territory of the lonely and isolated, focusing on everyone from the fantastically famous to the lowliest of Eleanor Rigbys. Collected here are "Haunting Julia, Sugar Daddies, Drowning on Dry Land, "and the universally acclaimed "Private Fears in Public Places," described by "Newsday"'s Linda Winer as "an exquisitely modulated chamber sextet about the unpredictable depths and overlapping absurdities of middleage melancholy."
In this third volume of his collected plays, Alan Ayckbourn takes his signature acerbic wit into the territory of the lonely and isolated, focusing...
The comic poet of middle class life, always so very funny, goes deeper and darker in this triumphant play about a housewife named Susan who is married to a boring cleric named George. After getting knocked out by stepping on the tooth end of a garden rake, Susan experiences hilarious hallucinations in which her oppressive and boring everyday life is replaced by a fantasy in which she is an ideal wife and mother with an ideal family. While her real family treats her with condescension and apathy, her fantasy family dresses in lovely white, always drinks champagne, lives in a stately home and...
The comic poet of middle class life, always so very funny, goes deeper and darker in this triumphant play about a housewife named Susan who is married...
Jack McCraken has the opportunity of a lifetime: he is the new head of a family furniture business and believes he will initiate a new age of honesty and integrity. He quickly learns that everyone else involved in the enterprise has a vested interest in maintaining business as usual, rife with dishonesty and deceit.
Jack McCraken has the opportunity of a lifetime: he is the new head of a family furniture business and believes he will initiate a new age of honesty ...
Looking at Edward Gray's three daughters and their unsuitable husbands, it is difficult to disagree with his pronouncement that we all marry the wrong person. It is also impossible not to laugh at the results hilariously portrayed in this early play by the master of English comedy that is being published for the first time. Indeed, even Edward's marriage to mousy Emma isn't all clear sailing, or why would the daughters who are visiting for their parents' wedding anniversary suspect that they are trying to kill each other Just as that plot thickens, the younger couples change partners and...
Looking at Edward Gray's three daughters and their unsuitable husbands, it is difficult to disagree with his pronouncement that we all marry the wr...
A thunderstorm. In a windswept country house a family of failures wrangles over a will: a detective who has never solved a case; a writer, an artist and a composer whose works have never been published, shown or performed, and a dysfunctional teenager. Here are the prime ingredients for a murder mystery, but this diversion is by Alan Ayckbourne and it has a number of surprises. The victim is not who it should be, the murder's identity changes overnight and the thrills are leavened with tongue in cheek...
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Comedy
Alan Ayckbourn
Characters: 3 male, 3 female
Interior
A thunderstorm. In a windswept country house a family of fa...
Henry Bell has come to the Albert Bridge to throw himself off because he has lost his wife and his job. Instead, he saves Karen Knightly who has thrown herself off the bridge already and is dangling by her caught coat. They spend a long night driving. Henry learns that Karen has been jilted by a lover who has gone back to his wife. She suggests revenge as a way to heal their emotional wounds: she will fix Henry's dreadful former boss and Henry must ruin her ex lover's wife. Karen executes her part of the bargain with brilliance, but Henry falls in love with the wife. As he is drawn deeper and...
Henry Bell has come to the Albert Bridge to throw himself off because he has lost his wife and his job. Instead, he saves Karen Knightly who has throw...
Trevor and Susannah, whose marraige is on the rocks, inflict their miseries on their nearest and dearest: three couples whose own relationships are tenuous at best. Taking place sequentially in the three beleaguered couples' bedrooms during one endless Saturday night of co-dependence and dysfunction, beds, tempers, and domestic order are ruffled, leading all the players to a hilariously touching epiphany.
Trevor and Susannah, whose marraige is on the rocks, inflict their miseries on their nearest and dearest: three couples whose own relationships are te...
There are three couples in this play, the men all working for the same firm. One of the younger men is having an affair with the wife of the oldest, and when each returns home suspiciously late one night or early one morning they invent a story about having to spend some time smoothing domestic matters in the home of the third couple. Both living rooms are shown in the single set, and both share a common dining room which takes on a character of its own as it serves two dinners simultaneously on two different nights. Of course, the third couple have to show up to put the fat in the fire, but...
There are three couples in this play, the men all working for the same firm. One of the younger men is having an affair with the wife of the oldest, a...
