Joking Apart | |||
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Written by | Alan Ayckbourn | ||
Characters | Richard Anthea Hugh Louise Sven Olive Brian Melody / Mandy / Mo / Debbie | ||
Date premiered | 11 January 1978 | ||
Place premiered | Stephen Joseph Theatre | ||
Original language | English | ||
Setting | Four parties over 12 years | ||
Alan Ayckbourn chronology | |||
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Joking Apart is a 1978 play by English playwright Alan Ayckbourn.
Written in response to comments that Ayckbourn only ever wrote about unhappy couples, the play follows Richard and Anthea, a perfect and happily married couple who inadvertently worsen the lives of the couples they have befriended over the course of 12 years: Hugh and Louise, Sven and Olive, and Brian and his seemingly never-ending stream of unsteady girlfriends (Melody, Mandy, Mo, and Debbie). In most productions, Brian's girlfriends are portrayed by the same actress, with characters commenting on their similar physical appearances.
Sir Alan Ayckbourn is a prolific British playwright and director. He has written and produced as of 2021, more than eighty 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.
Coupling is a British television sitcom written by Steven Moffat that aired on BBC2 from 12 May 2000 to 14 June 2004. Produced by Hartswood Films for the BBC, the show centres on the dating, sexual adventures, and mishaps of six friends in their early 30s, often depicting the three women and the three men each talking among themselves about the same events, but in entirely different terms.
Joking Apart is a BBC television sitcom written by Steven Moffat about the rise and fall of a relationship. It juxtaposes a couple, Mark and Becky, who fall in love and marry, before getting separated and finally divorced. The twelve episodes, broadcast between 1993 and 1995, were directed by Bob Spiers and produced by Andre Ptaszynski for independent production company Pola Jones.
Woman in Mind is the 32nd play by English playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It was premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round, Scarborough, in 1985. Despite pedestrian reviews by many critics, strong audience reaction resulted in a transfer to London's West End. The play received its London opening at the Vaudeville Theatre in 1986 where it received predominantly excellent reviews.
"The Voice" is the 158th episode of the NBC sitcom Seinfeld. This was the second episode for the ninth and final season. It aired on October 2, 1997. The episode's title refers to a joke Jerry and his friends share about his girlfriend's stomach having a voice, which ends up coming between Jerry and his girlfriend. Meanwhile, a chance encounter with David Puddy leads to Elaine renewing their relationship, George sticks with a job where his co-workers all hate him because he has a one-year contract with the company, and Kramer hires an intern and works with him on creating an oil bladder system.
Relatively Speaking is a play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, originally titled Meet My Father, his first major success.
Bedroom Farce is a 1975 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It had a London production at the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1978.
RolePlay is a 2001 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, the third in a trilogy of plays called Damsels in Distress. It is about an engaged couple, Julie-Ann Jobson and Justin Lazenby whose engagement party is interrupted by unexpected intrusions.
Joking Apart Theater is a small theater company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The name of the company is taken from the title of the play, Joking Apart by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. While Joking Apart has performed several of Ayckbourne's plays, the company is not solely dedicated to producing his works; rather it is dedicated to capturing the comic spirit of Ayckborn. The company's first production, That's MISTER Benchley to You, Mrs. Parker, was written by company founder Edwin Strout and was voted the best show of the 2003 Minnesota Fringe Festival.
Torben Betts is an English playwright, screenwriter and actor.
Taking Steps is a 1979 farce by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It is set on three floors of an old and reputedly haunted house, with the stage arranged so that the stairs are flat and all three floors are on a single level.
Damsels in Distress is a trilogy of plays written in 2001 by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. The three plays, GamePlan, FlatSpin and RolePlay, were originally performed as a set by the Stephen Joseph Theatre Company (SJT). The plays were written to be performed by the same seven actors using the same set. Although the plays loosely shared some common themes, the three stories were independent of each other and unconnected.
If I Were You is a 2006 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It is about an unhappy married couple who are given the chance to understand each other by discovering, quite literally, what they would do "if I were you," in the same manner as the novel Turnabout by Thorne Smith.
Improbable Fiction is a 2005 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It is about a writers' circle, on the night the chairman, Arnold, seems to wander into the imaginations of the other writers.
Snake in the Grass is a 2002 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. The play is about a middle-aged older sister who returns to the family home where her younger sister still lives, shortly after their abusive father's death. It was written as a female companion piece to the 1994 ghost play Haunting Julia, and in 2008 these two plays, together with new play Life and Beth were folded into a trilogy named Things That Go Bump.
Time Of My Life is a play by Alan Ayckbourn. It premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough on 21 April 1992 then in the West End on 3 August 1993.
Life and Beth is a 2008 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It was written as a third part of a trilogy named Things That Go Bump, uniting the cast of the first two plays: Haunting Julia (1994) and Snake in the Grass (2002). It is about a recently bereaved widow, Beth, troubled by her family's misguided support and a late husband who won't leave her alone.
How the Other Half Loves is a 1969 play in two acts by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It is a farce following the consequences of an adulterous affair between a married man and his boss’s wife and their attempts to cover their tracks by roping in a third couple to be their alibi, resulting in a chain of misunderstandings, conflicts and revelations. The play is known to have secured Ayckbourn’s runaway success as a playwright.
Life of Riley is a 2014 French comedy-drama film directed by Alain Resnais in his final feature film before his death. Adapted from the play Life of Riley by Alan Ayckbourn, the film had its premiere in the competition section of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival, just three weeks before Resnais died, where it won the Alfred Bauer Prize.
Rules for Living is a dark comedy about family dysfunction and societal norms by Sam Holcroft. Holcroft explores coping with family dynamics and social constructs that limit behaviors through cognitive therapy. The play follows a family preparing for Christmas lunch and tensions begin to rise as they deal with family issues. Each movement, gesture, or voice is dictated over by the play's set of "rules" which the actors must follow to function correctly in Holcroft's world.