| A Chorus of Disapproval | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 Original window card, 1984 | |||
| Written by | Alan Ayckbourn | ||
| Date premiered | 2 May 1984 | ||
| Place premiered | Stephen Joseph Theatre (Westwood site) Scarborough, England | ||
| Original language | English | ||
| Subject | An amateur operatic society mirrors The Beggar's Opera | ||
| Genre | Comedy | ||
| Official site | |||
| Ayckbourn chronology | |||
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A Chorus of Disapproval is a 1984 play written by English playwright Alan Ayckbourn.
The story follows a young widower, Guy Jones, as he joins an amateur operatic society that is putting on The Beggar's Opera . He rapidly progresses through the ranks to become the male lead, while simultaneously conducting liaisons with several of the female cast. Many of the songs from The Beggar's Opera are kept within the play, usually being sung with their own, new context.
Ayckbourn wrote the work for the 1984 summer season at his Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, where it opened on 2 May. Peter Hall, director of the National Theatre, London, had expressed an interest in the piece and Ayckbourn modified his initial concept to suit an eventual large-scale production; on 1 August 1985 it opened in the National's Olivier auditorium, with Ayckbourn directing, Michael Gambon playing amateur director Dafydd Llewellyn and Bob Peck as newcomer Guy Jones. The female leads were Gemma Craven, Imelda Staunton and Kelly Hunter. [1] [2]
Sir Alan Ayckbourn is a prolific British playwright and director. He has written and produced as of 2024, 90 full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their first performance. More than 40 have subsequently been produced in the West End, at the Royal National Theatre or by the Royal Shakespeare Company since his first hit Relatively Speaking opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1967.
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Ballad operas were satiric musical plays that used some of the conventions of opera, but without recitative. The lyrics of the airs in the piece are set to popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time.
Albert Hamilton Schultz is a former Canadian actor, director and the founding artistic director of Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre Company. He resigned his position with Soulpepper after sexual allegations against Schultz became public in January 2018.
Sir Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE was an English theatre, opera and film director. His obituary in The Times declared him "the most important figure in British theatre for half a century" and on his death, a Royal National Theatre statement declared that Hall's "influence on the artistic life of Britain in the 20th century was unparalleled". In 2018, the Laurence Olivier Awards, recognising achievements in London theatre, changed the award for Best Director to the Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director.
The Evening Standard Theatre Awards, established in 1955, are the oldest theatrical awards ceremony in the United Kingdom. They are presented annually for outstanding achievements in London Theatre, and are organised by the Evening Standard newspaper. They are the West End's equivalent to Broadway's Drama Desk Awards.
By Jeeves, originally Jeeves, is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and lyrics and book by Alan Ayckbourn. It is based on the series of novels and short stories by P. G. Wodehouse that centre around the character of Bertie Wooster and his loyal valet, Jeeves.
Way Upstream is a play by Alan Ayckbourn. It was first performed, under Ayckbourn's direction, in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, UK, "in the round" at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, on 2 October 1981. Although realistic in style, with a setting of a hired cabin cruiser on an English river, some journalists read it as an allegory of the political state of England at the time, with the violent resolution of the usurping captain's tyrannical regime taking place at "Armageddon Bridge", and crew members "Alistair" and "Emma" making a new start at the end. Ayckbourn, however, always maintained he was an apolitical writer and is on frequent record for his lack of interest in party politics; his website makes it clear that the play is not about the political state of the nation.
Fiona Hendley is a British actress and latterly Christian speaker, married to the former Manfred Mann singer and actor Paul Jones.
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The Lyric Theatre is a West End theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. It was built for the producer Henry Leslie, who financed it from the profits of the light opera hit, Dorothy, which he transferred from its original venue to open the new theatre on 17 December 1888.
Julian Harries is a British actor and playwright.
Matthew Cottle is an English film, stage, radio and television actor.
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Barbara Gillian Ferris is an English actress and former fashion model.
A Chorus of Disapproval is a 1989 British film adapted from the 1984 Alan Ayckbourn play of the same title, directed by Michael Winner. Among the films's cast are Anthony Hopkins, Jeremy Irons, Richard Briers, and Alexandra Pigg.
Janie Dee is a British actress. She won the Olivier Award for Best Actress, Evening Standard Award and Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Play, and in New York the Obie and Theatre World Award for Best Newcomer, for her performance as Jacie Triplethree in Alan Ayckbourn's Comic Potential.
Lucy Bailey is a British theatre director, known for productions such as Baby Doll at Britain's National Theatre and a notorious Titus Andronicus, described by a critic as "all eye-catchingly visceral but there’s little depth". Bailey founded the Gogmagogs theatre-music group (1995–2006) and was Artistic Director and joint founder of the Print Room theatre in West London (2010-2012). She has worked extensively with Bunny Christie and other leading stage designers, including her husband William Dudley.
The National Youth Music Theatre (NYMT) is an arts organisation in the United Kingdom providing pre-professional education and musical theatre stage experience for young people. Based in London, it is constituted as a private limited company and as a registered charity. NYMT was founded in 1976 by director and playwright Jeremy James Taylor. Since its inception, it has produced more than fifty productions at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, premièred thirty new musical theatre works, toured several times outside the United Kingdom, and had runs in the West End and on Broadway.
David Bark-Jones is an English actor. He has appeared in numerous film, theatre and TV productions. He won Broadwayworld.com's Best Actor in a West End Play, 2010, for his portrayal of Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps. In 2024, he joined the cast of the BBC soap opera Doctors as Ed Jordan.
