| 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 2023, 89 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.
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.
Nigel Derek Harman is an English actor. Beginning his career as a child actor, he has played various roles across theatre, stage and television, including as Sky Masterson in Michael Grandage's revival of Guys and Dolls and as Lord Farquaad in the original London production of Shrek the Musical, for which he received an Olivier Award.
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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.
Sam Walters MBE is a British theatre director who retired in 2014 as artistic director of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London. He has also directed in the West End and at Ipswich, Canterbury and Greenwich, as well as at LAMDA, RADA and Webber Douglas. After 42 years Walters, the United Kingdom's longest-serving artistic director, and his wife and associate director, Auriol Smith, stepped down from their posts at the Orange Tree Theatre in June 2014.
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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 over 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. Amongst the many alumni of the National Youth Music Theatre who have gone on to careers in the performing arts are actors Idris Elba and Jude Law, both of whom are also patrons of the organisation, along with Jonny Lee Miller, Dylan Strazar, Sheridan Smith, Connie Fisher, and Matt Lucas. Alumni have also included directors such as Jo Davies, and songwriters such as Tara Mcdonald.
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.
