Alan Ayckbourn

There are no less than eight intimate exchanges in this ingenious tour de farce and each has two different endings; you can see Intimate Exchanges sixteen times and not see the same play twice! And one actor and one actress play all 10 characters. This is Ayckbourn's most unusual look yet at the foibles of middle class living.-1 woman, 1 man

There are no less than eight intimate exchanges in this ingenious tour de farce and each has two different endings; you can see Intimate Exchanges sixteen times and not see the same play twice! And one actor and one actress play all 10 characters. This is Ayckbourn's most unusual look yet at the foibles of middle class living.-1 woman, 1 man

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.-4 women, 3 men

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 Jilly and Ivor and meets Matthew who appears eminently suitable. But their ensuing affair is doomed by Matthew's persistent, precision fault-finding and Caroline realizes she can cope better with the slovenly, but kind-hearted, Kevin sprawling on her sofa. The plot is evolved in clever time-splitting sequences between the present and three years past.3 women, 4 men, 8 women or men

There are three couples in this play, the men all working for the same firm. One of the younger men is having an affair with the wife of the oldest, and when each returns home suspiciously late one night or early one morning they invent a story about having to spend some time smoothing domestic matters in the home of the third couple. Both living rooms are shown in the single set, and both share a common dining room which takes on a character of its own as it serves two dinners simultaneously on two different nights. Of course, the third couple have to show up to put the fat in the fire, but that complication only adds to the fun of this famous farce.

Roland, a hard drinking tycoon, is considering buying an old Victorian house, once a brothel. His solicitor and the vendor, a builder, arrive to complete the deal. Also in the house are his wife, a frustrated dancer who is always considering leaving him, her brother and later the brother's fianc , who is uncertain whether or not to run away. In the course of one hectic night and morning, with continual running up and downstairs and in and out of rooms, these characters, each immersed in a personal problem, try to sort themselves out.-2 women, 4 men

This ingenious comedy is about two sisters and the choices they make (or have made for them) over a few months. There are four versions that can be done on different evenings, each stemming from one random and one deliberate choice. The story starts with a funeral at which Dorcas, Abigail and Simon solve a dilemma by tossing a coin: either Dorcas or Abigail wins the toss and goes with Simon. Later, at a picnic, Dorcas opts for either a camping adventure for Abigail or a day of sports for herself. The inevitable end of either choice is a wedding.4 women, 8 men

Another marvelous portrait of middle class, middle aged life by this skillful portrayer of manners and morals. Charming, naturally successful in everything, Anthea and Richard almost unconsciously but ruthlessly dominate the lives of those with whom they are associated in business or as neighbors. Over twelve years Sven, Richard's partner, is virtually nudged out of the firm Brian tries, ineffectually, through a series of girl friends to replace his love, Anthea Hugh, a local vicar, falls hopelessly for Anthea Hugh's wife is driven to drugs by Anthea and Richard's kindness. The play ends with Anthea's daughter, Debbie, awaiting the guests for her eighteenth birthday party with Brian making one last attempt for an Anthea substitute.

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. Committee meetings become symbolic battlefields for conflicting views - the right wing faction being led by the Chairman's conservative wife. The event turns into a violent confrontation between the two extremes, with cataclysmic results. Police intervention brings matters to a relatively quiet conclusion, but already another pageant - Romans versus Britons - seems an attractive possibility.

Trevor and Susannah, whose marraige is on the rocks, inflict their miseries on their nearest and dearest: three couples whose own relationships are tenuous at best. Taking place sequentially in the three beleaguered couples' bedrooms during one endless Saturday night of co-dependence and dysfunction, beds, tempers, and domestic order are ruffled, leading all the players to a hilariously touching epiphany.

Dennis spends his spare time messing about in his untidy garage, indifferent to the fact that his wife is being driven to distraction and beyond by his possessive mother. The hidden tension and antagonisms under an apparently normal surface build up to a climax of bizarre violence and madness.3 women, 2 men

An entertainment on marriage by George Melly, Alan Ayckbourn, James Saunders, Harold Pinter, Alun Owen, Fay Weldon, David Campton, Lyndon Brook and John Bowen.1 woman, 1 man or flexible casting

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. Understandably they are on edge wondering what to say, but there is more to their unease: Diane and Paul, John and Evelyn, and Marge and her husband are perpetually out of circulation with trivial illnesses are all kept together by a mixture of business and cross-marital emotional ties. By the time Colin arrives for tea, their tenseness contrasts dramatically with his air of cheerful relaxation. He is the only happy one among them and his happiness and insensitive analyses of their troubles causes each of them to break down.

In this play, Sarah's desperate attempts to have a nice, civilized week end culminate, not surprisingly, in disaster. Ruth, Norman's wife, is summoned but Norman still contrives to cause havoc involving, finally, all three women. Matters are not helped by such events as the slow thinking Tom mistaking Ruth's intentions during a conversation they have together. Eventually the horrific week end draws to a close.3 women, 3 men

Annie, the Cinderella of the family, lives in the shabby Victorian vicarage type house where the family was brought up. Reg, her brother, and his wife Sarah come to stay for a week end so that she may go away for a "rest". The general idea is that Annie ought to pair off with Tom. But for this weekend it is Norman, the raffish assistant librarian husband of Annie's sister Ruth, with whom she planned to go. They were to meet secretly but Norman turns up early. When Annie calls the whole thing off Norman decides to stay on at the house and gets roaring drunk.3 women, 3 men

Living Together, Round and Round the Garden and Table Manners make up this trilogy of plays. All occur during a single weekend in different parts of the same house and concern a group of related people. Each is complete in itself and can be played alone, or as a group they can be performed in any order. However, each benefits when produced with the others. A common factor is Norman's inadequate attempts to involve himself in turn with his sister in law, his brother in law's wife and his own wife.

In this play, Annie has arranged to spend an illicit weekend with her sister Ruth's husband Norman, and for this reason, suitably disguised, has asked her elder brother Reg and his wife Sarah to look after their widowed mother and the house. As it happens the seduction, thought or planned, by each of the six characters never takes place either. Table Manners is part of The Norman Conquests trilogy.

Meet three couples in their three kitchens on the Christmas Eves of three successive years. The "lower class" but very much up and coming Hopcrofts are in their bright new, gadget filled kitchen anxiously giving a little party for their bank manager and his wife and an architect neighbor. Next there are the architect and his wife in their neglected, untidy flat. Then the bank manager and his wife are in their large, slightly modernized, old Victorian style kitchen. Running like a dark thread through the wild comedy of behind the scenes disasters at Christmas parties is the story of the advance of the Hopcrofts to material prosperity and independence and the decline of the others. In the final stages the little man is well and truly on top, with the others, literally and unnervingly, dancing to his tune.