Family Album (Ayckbourn)

Alan Ayckbourn’s new play tenderly chronicles the trials, tribulations and temptations of three generations of one family across 70 years in the same home.

The Girl Next Door

Placing wartime and lockdown life side-by-side, Alan Ayckbourn’s 85th play is a touching, tender and, of course, funny reflection on the ability of love to rise above adversity and reach across the years.

Round and Round the Garden

Winner! 2009 Tony® Award for Best Revival of a Play
Winner! 2009 Drama Desk Award for Best Revival of a Play
Winner! 2009 Outer Critics Circle Outstanding Revival of a Play

Round and Round the Garden is part of The Norman Conquests trilogy.

Table Manners

Winner! 2009 Tony® Award for Best Revival of a Play
Winner! 2009 Drama Desk Award for Best Revival of a Play
Winner! 2009 Outer Critics Circle Outstanding Revival of a Play

Awaking Beauty

"Imagine a fairytale world meeting a saucy seaside postcard and you have something of the flavor of Alan Ayckbourn's 72nd play." - Guardian

"It had me appreciating some wry lyrics, chuckling at some mischievous moments, and humming D…

Living Together

Winner! 2009 Tony® Award for Best Revival of a Play
Winner! 2009 Drama Desk Award for Best Revival of a Play
Winner! 2009 Outer Critics Circle Outstanding Revival of a Play

Absurd Person Singular

Meet three couples in their three kitchens on the Christmas Eves of three successive years. Running like a dark thread through the wild comedy of behind the scenes disasters at Christmas parties is the story of the advance of one of the couples to material prosperity and independence and the decline of the others.

A Chorus of Disapproval

A diffident widower attempts to escape loneliness by joining the local amateur light operatic society. By accident rather than by design (in fact, by not saying "no" to anything be it a request to obtain confidential information from his company or an offer of illicit sex) he advances from a small part to the lead.

Arrivals and Departures

A poignant, timely comedy of two strangers meeting in the midst of an increasingly farcical anti-terrorist operation.

A Brief History of Women

A comedy in four parts about an unremarkable man and the remarkable women who loved him, left him, or lost him over sixty years; and of the equally remarkable old manor house that saw and heard it all happen.

Farcicals

Comprising Chloë With Love and The Kidderminster Affair.

Bedroom Farce

In this gleeful comedy set in three bedrooms, four couples struggle hilariously with the ups and downs of their rocky relationships.

Consuming Passions

In this beguiling two-part thriller from master playwright Alan Ayckbourn, a woman believes she overhears a murder being planned. But has she really? And, if so, can she prevent it?

Ernie's Incredible Illucinations

This is a bright comedy by the famous English comic playwright about the extraordinary powers of Ernie Fraser, a dreamer with a difference.

Haunting Julia

Julia Lukin was a musical prodigy who committed suicide 12 years ago. Her father Joe has never come to terms with her death, and in the Julia Larkin Centre For Performing Studies, he hopes to discover what happened by meeting with a psychic, Ken, and Julia's boyfriend, Andy, who was the last person to see her alive. The men meet in Julia's preserved bedroom and Joe reveals that he believes Julia is trying to contact him, haunting him in order to explain what happened. Between the three men, the story of Julia's life and death is gradually revealed - often at odds with what each man believes he knew. Julia had ultimately been unable to cope with the pressures of both her father and her overwhelming musical gift. Joe, of course, is unwilling to accept his love could ever have led to Julia's suicide, while Andy is still guilt-ridden about whether he could have prevented the tragedy had he not broken up with her that night. Ken attempts to contact Julia, but is revealed to be a hoax when he picks up Julia's teddy-bear to receive a message. The bear is a plant, the original long since lost. Ken reveals that he has waited many years to meet Joe and explain that he knew Julia; that she would come and find refuge in his and his wife's normal life and that, contrary to what may have been said, Julia told him at the end she loved her father. Ken is actually more aware of what is happening than the others credit him for though and as each of the men's feelings and recollections come to light, Ken believes Julia is poised to appear. A door onto what should be a brick wall blows open; impossibly the original corridor is present. Julia manifests herself, visible only to Joe, although the room is wrecked by an eerie wind and the bed begins to bleed. Joe understands what Julia has endured and that she is not at peace; he is haunting her. In a final moment of understanding, Joe lets his daughter go.

Season's Greetings

"Brilliantly combines cynicism and humor." - Sunday Express

"Superbly crafted." - Sunday Telegraph

Sugar Daddies

"Provokes a surprising deal of thought and a great measure of laughter en route." - Daily Telegraph

The Jollies

"I mean, what do you do when you suddenly find you've got a mother who's younger than you are? And a kid brother who turns out to be twenty years older than you? Right. You panic." Yes, eleven-year-old Polly has quite a problem. Now the police are af…

Wolf at the Door

When a sudden heart attack claims the life of the father of the Vigneron household, the family is plunged into economic turmoil. Madame Vigneron and her children are forced to rely on the advice of others in sorting out the complicated estate, and fi…

Better Off Dead

Larger than life and highly irascible author Algy Waterbridge is hard at work on his 33rd crime novel featuring blunt Yorkshire cop DCI Tommy Middlebrass. But it’s been a while since Tommy was on the TV, Algy’s wife is getting frighteningly forgetful and his adoring PA sometimes oversteps the mark. With constant interruptions, it’s almost the last straw when old acquaintance Gus Crewe turns up to interview him for the press, with alarming consequences.

Surprises

Love stories yet to happen, in a future full of surprises.

A Word from Our Sponsor

This futuristic musical is set in a small-town railway station, sometime all too soon. Harry Wooller, a vicar, is looking for sponsorship for his group's musical Mystery play. His call is intercepted by a dubious but immensely powerful source - Valda…

Comic Potential

"Comic Potential hurts you with the sheer exuberance of its laughter and liberates you with its seriousness." - London Sunday Times

Orvin - Champion of Champions

An epic musical of accidental heroism. The chorus of gods set out to relate the tale of the Great Ulmar, legendary warrior and champion of Sollistis. But their narrative suffers a major technical hitch when Orvin, Ulmar's hopeless squire, oversleeps on the eve of battle. What follows proves a …

Private Fears in Public Places

"Sir Alan's play is a tale of the misheard, the unspoken and the sadly misunderstood. absolute perfection, bringing warmth, humor, and sadness to Ayckbourn's exquisite dark comedy." - thetheatremania.com

"Quintessentially theatrical i…

Whenever

Beginning in 1886, this historical-futuristic musical finds Emily's good Uncle Martin inventing a time-machine that wicked Uncle Lucas wants to get his hands on. So Emily must journey to the end of time to ensure evil does not prevail.

A Cut in the Rates

When Miss Pickhart visits the illusionist Ratchet on official Town Hall business, she discovers a sinister secret. Alone in the cellar after Ratchet is called away, she confronts the ghost of Rosalinda who met an untimely death during the saw the woman in half trick. 

A Small Family Business

Jack McCraken 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.

A Talk in the Park

A short play from Confusions.

Absent Friends

Colin must be comforted in his grief over the death of his fiancee so his friends, who never met the girl, arrange a tea party for him. 

Between Mouthfuls

A fate-fraught dinner encounter from Confusions.

Body Language

There is an awful accident at a cosmetic surgery clinic; overweight reporter Jo and glamour model Angie are beheaded by a helicopter. But never fear, infamous surgeon Hravic knows exactly how to save them and as if by miracle, their heads are sewn back - on the wrong bodies.

Callisto 5

Eight years of macaroni and cheese for breakfast, lunch and supper... It's enough to drive a boy crazy - until a new, unexpected, and rather dangerous creature arrives on Callisto 5.

Communicating Doors

This intricate time traveling comic thriller by the British master of farcical comedy delighted London and New York audiences. A London sex specialist from the future stumbles into a murder plot that sends her, compliments of a unique set of hotel doors, traveling back in time. 

Confusions

This set of five interlinked one-act comedies deals riotously – but with sharply pointed undertones – with human eccentricities and the universal dilemma of loneliness.

Countdown

An entertainment on marriage by George Melly, Alan Ayckbourn, James Saunders, Harold Pinter, Alun Owen, Fay Weldon, David Campton, Lyndon Brook and John Bowen.

Dreams from a Summer House

The reigning king of English comedy strikes off in a new direction with this gleeful fantasy. A couple is preparing for an al fresco party while their hapless ex son in law is holed up in their summer house, drinking off his divorce while he completes illustrations for a new edition of Beauty and the Beast. When he conjures Belle to life and she appears in the garden unable to understand English unless it is sung, her fantastical presence wreaks havoc with the all too real lives around her. 

Drinking Companion

An unsuccessful seduction attempt is depicted in this short play from Confusions.

Drowning on Dry Land

Charlie Conrad is a celebrity. His talent? He hasn't got one; the nation took him to their hearts for very publicly being unable to do anything competently. One fateful day, however, Charlie meets Marsha, and his marriage and career go into freefall ...Drowning on Dry Land examines the curr…

Family Circles

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.

FlatSpin

A night of romance in her luxurious riverside apartment with the good-looking stranger from next door. How can Joanna possibly go wrong? Except the flat isn't hers, her name isn't Joanna, it's Rosie (she's an actress), and heaven knows what the good-…

GamePlan

Teenage Sorrel fights to keep herself and her abandoned mother, once a dot.com businesswoman, financially afloat by setting up as a part-time hooker, advertising for clients on the Internet and persuading her tearful school chum to act as her maid.

Garden

Teddy's jilted mistress threatens suicide as a garden fête is prepared. In the original production at Scarborough, and later at the National Theatre, the play was performed in adjacent auditoria simultaneously with Garden.

Gizmo

Ben suffers from post-traumatic paralysis, brought on by a shooting he witnessed. Doctors have developed an advanced new device, GIZMO; a microchip implanted in Ben's brain helps him walk by mimicking the movements of the GIZMO wearer. Then Ben falls…

Gosforth's Fête

A disastrous fete is depicted in this short play from Confusions.

Henceforward

"This brilliant play offers an ultimately bleak vision of men, machines and society. But the exhilarating Ayckbournian paradox is that the darker it gets the funnier it becomes." - The Guardian

Hero's Welcome

A war hero returns to the town he fled 17 years ago, which threatens to stir up old rivalries and resentments.

House

Teddy Platt, whose marriage is spectacularly on the rocks, is visited by the creepy Gavin Ring-Mayne, who is trying to persuade him to stand for Parliament.

How the Other Half Loves

"You can go into the Royale Theatre stone cold sober and come out a couple of hours later drunk from laughter." - UPI

If I Were You

The Rodales seem like an ordinary family, but beneath the surface things are beginning to crack. Jill and Mal have lost the spark in their marriage, their son Sam resents his father and their daughter Chrissie has recently become a mum and is dealing with marriage issues of her own. And while they a…

Improbable Fiction

Six aspiring authors meet on a winter's evening to discuss their work. The chairman, Arnold, attempts to persuade the group to collaborate on a piece of writing, an idea that is quickly dismissed. However, as Arnold is clearing up after the meeting there is a clap of thunder, a black-out — and then …

Intimate Exchanges, Volume I

"There are scores of side splittingly funny lines derived from Mr. Ayckbourn's acute observation of the middle classes at bay, floundering under the pressures of trying to lead, or to be seen leading, respectable lives. The comedy is wry, sardonic an…

Intimate Exchanges, Volume II

"There are scores of side splittingly funny lines derived from Mr. Ayckbourn's acute observation of the middle classes at bay, floundering under the pressures of trying to lead, or to be seen leading, respectable lives. The comedy is wry, sardonic and bitter." - The London Spectator

“…scores of sidesplittingly funny lines. The comedy is wry, sardonic and bitter…" - The Spectator

Invisible Friends

"An extremely funny and deeply serious play which appeals to the irrepressible child in every adult and to the insufferable adult in every child." - London Sunday Times

"Ingenious and involving." - Daily Telegraph

It Could Be Any One of Us

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 mys…

Joking Apart

"Time has always been a key component in Alan Ayckbourn's comedies, but usually in the form of amazing tricks with simultaneity and compression. In his twenty-first play, Ayckbourn reverses the procedure with an action spanning 12 years, which shows time to be no laughing matter." - The Times

Just Between Ourselves

"A beautiful, funny sad play. . . . It doesn't seem inappropriate to evoke Chekhov. Like the Master, Ayckbourn sees life as it is and life as it ought to be." - Plays and Players

Life and Beth

"Comic and touching …" - The Guardian

It's Christmas, and Beth Timms is mourning the recent death of her health and safety officer husband, Gordon. Beth's sister-in-law Connie and son Martin have come to stay, determined to ensure that she should have a stress-free Christmas, but between…

Life of Riley

"As perceptive as ever ... Ayckbourn has once again achieved a satisfyingly rich, tragi-comic complexity." - Daily Telegraph

With a few months of his life remaining, George Riley's closest friends remember with love, nostalgia or occasional bursts of fury, how deeply he has affected all their past lives.

Man of the Moment

"A masterpiece [by] Ayckbourn at the peak of his powers using comedy to say harsh, true things about our society." - The Guardian

"Marvelous, moving and memorable." - Time Out

Mixed Doubles

An entertainment on marriage by George Melly, Alan Ayckbourn, James Saunders, Harold Pinter, Alun Owen, Fay Weldon, David Campton, Lyndon Brook and John Bowen.

Mother Figure

A mother is unable to escape from baby talk in this short play from Confusions.

Mr Whatnot

Mr Whatnot is Mint, a piano tuner, summoned to the stately home of Lord and Lady Slingsby-Craddock. Once there he falls in love with their daughter, Amanda, elopes with her, fails to save her from marriage to Cecil but wins through in the end.

Mr. A's Amazing Maze Plays

"Contains mystery, suspense and imagination." - The Guardian

My Very Own Story

Due to an unfortunate triple booking, three storytellers, Peter, Paul and Percy, arrive simultaneously each to tell his own story. 

My Wonderful Day

"Alan Ayckbourn back on blistering form...My Wonderful Day finds him in top form — and breaking new ground. The play is often blissfully and farcically funny. But there is an ache of sorrow here for children who have to grow up too quickly."

Neighbourhood Watch (Ayckbourn)

"This timely and provocative play rivets attention throughout. There are some blissful comic moments and even that staple of Ayckbourn’s dramatic world, an ornamental garden gnome, has a crucial part to play." Charles Spencer, Telegraph

Relatively Speaking

Greg and Ginny are living together, but Greg is becoming somewhat suspicious that he is not the only man in her life. He wonders about Ginny's plan 'to visit her parents' and decides to follow her. Ginny is really going to see a considerably older lo…

RolePlay

Justin and Julie-Ann, hopelessly mismatched in love, are about to introduce their respective parents to each other over dinner - Justin's upper-crust alcoholic mother from Surrey and Julie-Ann's bigoted Yorkshire father and prim mother. 

Sisterly Feelings

"For more than a decade, Ayckbourn has been drawing up a great comic map of middle class malevolence, dottiness and insecurity. Sisterly Feelings confidently extends the view." - Sunday London Times

"Family fun unpure and simple..…

Snake in the Grass

"A creepily, scarily, eerily enjoyable evening." - Sunday Times

"It's a suspense drama about murder, blackmail and haunting; there is depth and subtlety..." - Financial Times
"Subtle and powerful." - The Guardian

Suburban Strains

Caroline marries an unemployed actor, Kevin, whom she supports while he flirts with women and spoils her flat with his oafish behaviour. Eventually he seduces one of her pupils and Caroline throws him out. Miserably isolated, she goes to dinner with …

Taking Steps

"A farce of riotous delight." - Evening News

"Superbly funny hilarious." - The Guardian

Ten Times Table

The leading lights of the village have decided to hold a pageant of local history based on a somewhat vague event, "The Massacre of the Pendon Twelve". But there's a young left wing teacher on the committee who decides to turn it into a rally for proletarian revolution.

The Boy Who Fell Into a Book

Rockfist Slim's enemies have plunged him into another desperate situation when Kevin has to close his detective book and go to sleep. But his own adventure is only just beginning.

The Champion of Paribanou

Murganah loves Ahmed, the Sultan's youngest son, but feeling herself rejected, she invokes the help of dark supernatural forces to regain him. When she finally loses him to another she seeks a terrible revenge. 

The Revengers' Comedies, Part 1

"Gloriously funny." - Sunday Express

"Great gags and splendid deaths proliferate." - Time Out

"Shows Ayckbourn's rare gift for combining moral fevour with the ability to wring from us tears of helpless laughter." - The G…

Things We Do for Love

"Handles a potentially tragic theme with a rueful comic zest.... This is a Private Lives for the nineties." - The Guardian

This Is Where We Came In

Albert and a strange mechanized creature, Kevin on Keyboards. They tell Fred that they are slaves of the Storytellers who control their every move. Once they had a champion, Flavius, who nearly managed to wrest storytelling control back into their hands where it belongs. The Storytellers arrive: Gre…

Time and Time Again

The suburban house of the Bakers' adjoins a recreation field, which is useful since football and cricket play a large part in the story. Peter, who works for Graham, brings his fiancee to the house and Graham, as usual, makes a bee line for her. However, it is Mrs. Baker's brother, Leonard, to whom …

Time of My Life

"A play by an inspired master craftsman and cunning psychologist working at full stretch: harsh and funny, simple and cunning, generous but unforgiving." - Sunday Times

"Funny, very funny, and not at all funny; quintessentially Ayckbourn." - Daily Telegraph

Tons of Money (revised, Ayckbourn)

"A spirited piece which captures the flavor of the period." - Sunday Today

"Mr. Aychbourn's treatment of this... crowd pleaser is an unerring theatrical delight." - Daily Mail

Way Upstream

What could be more pleasant than cruising through the picturesque English countryside? This voyage combines the comedy touches that make Ayckbourn one of the world's best loved playwrights with a darker thread of menace. …

Wildest Dreams

"An impressive evening, full of vigor and inventiveness." - The Sunday Telegraph

"A tour de force of comic organization." - The Observer

"The author puts an extravagant spin on his own wild journey to those places where humo…

Woman in Mind

"Ayckbourn knows that even the bleakest situations aren't allergic to laughter, and he creates a set of believable people whose weaknesses and foibles are food for mirth. We laugh at ourselves through his characters and the experience is at once pain…