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.
The Gielgud Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue, at the corner of Rupert Street, in the City of Westminster, London. The house currently has 986 seats on three levels.
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.
Emma Gwynedd Mary Chambers was an English actress who performed in television, film, and the theatre. Beginning her career in 1987 on the British stage, she first drew critical attention for her portrayals of teenage characters in the world premieres of two plays by Alan Ayckbourn at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough: Geain in Henceforward... (1987) and Lucy Baines in Invisible Friends (1989). She reprised both roles in London's West End; performing the latter role at the Royal National Theatre. She is best known for her portrayal of the characters Alice Tinker in the BBC comedy The Vicar of Dibley and Honey Thacker in the film Notting Hill (1999).
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.
Comic Potential by Alan Ayckbourn is a romantic sci-fi comedy play. It is set in a TV studio in the foreseeable future, when low-cost androids have largely replaced actors.
House and Garden are a diptych of plays written by the English playwright Alan Ayckbourn, first performed in 1999. They are designed to be staged simultaneously, with the same cast in adjacent auditoria, and were published together as House & Garden. House takes place in the drawing room, and Garden in the grounds, of a large country house. Each play is self-contained, and they may be attended in either order. As is typical of his work, Ayckbourn portrays the mostly bittersweet relationships between more or less unhappy, upper-middle-class people. The title is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the magazine House & Garden, in which country houses and gardens are often portrayed as idyllic, peaceful places.
Relatively Speaking is a play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, originally titled Meet My Father, his first major success.
Season's Greetings is a 1980 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It is a black, though often farcical, comedy about four days in the life of a dysfunctional family, starting on Christmas Eve and set in an average English suburban house.
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.
The Orange Tree Theatre is a 180-seat theatre at 1 Clarence Street, Richmond in south-west London, which was built specifically as a theatre in the round. It is housed within a disused 1867 primary school, built in Victorian Gothic style.
Janie Dee is an English actress and singer. 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.
David Campton was a prolific British dramatist who wrote plays for the stage, radio, and cinema for thirty-five years. "He was one of the first British dramatists to write in the style of the Theatre of the Absurd".
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.
Haunting Julia is a 1994 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It is about Julia Lukin, a nineteen-year-old brilliant musician who committed suicide twelve years earlier, who haunts the three men closest to her, through both the supernatural and in their memories. In 2008, it was presented as the first play of Things That Go Bump.
A Chorus of Disapproval is a 1984 play written by English playwright Alan Ayckbourn.
Invisible Friends is a 1989 children's play by the British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It was written as a starring vehicle for actress Emma Chambers who portrayed the central character of teenager Lucy Baines in the original production at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England for its run in late 1989 and early 1990. Often seen as a companion play to Woman in Mind, Lucy escapes her unhappiness with her own family by reviving her imaginary childhood friend, Zara. Lucy's family, however, do not approve of this imaginative thinking. Zara helps Lucy to make her family invisible, and Lucy feels much happier. However, Zara outstays her welcome and manipulates Lucy into catering and cleaning for her and her brother Chuck and father Felix. Lucy manages to defeat Zara, Chuck, and Felix and make her family visible again, and they begin to pay more attention to her.
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 2010 play by Alan Ayckbourn. It was first performed at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough.
Elizabeth Bell was an English actress.
