LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Alan Ayckbourn: Theatre
built 210 days ago
Unless you happen to be a wife or son of Alan Ayckbourn, it is impossible to know how autobiographical his plays are. To an outsider, they seem to have been drawn from a sort of social war reporting - the entanglements of marriage and friendship in The Norman Conquests, or a near-suicidal woman in Just Between Ourselves - or train-set playing with the possibilities of the stage: a single cast performing two interlocking plays in adjoining theatres in House and Garden.
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In 1959, Ayckbourn married Christine Roland. Their union produced two children, Steven Paul and Philip Nicholas. In 1961, Ayckbourn left Scarborough to found his own company, the Victoria Theatre Company in Stoke-on-Trent. From 1965 to 1970, he ... worked for the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) as a producer of radio dramas. Meanwhile, he continued to write occasional plays for the Scarborough company.
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Ayckbourn is one of England's most prolific dramatists. His dozens of plays include Absurd Person Singular, A Small Family Business, House and Garden, Bedroom Farce and Comic Potential. The first of these was recently revived on Broadway by the Manhattan Theatre Club, which often produces his plays.
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Ayckbourn’s contribution to the theater is impressive. Although his comedies were initially considered unfashionable, they have always been wellreceived by critics and audiences alike, all of whom have recognized Ayckbourn’s technical prowess and his unusual ability to balance comedy and pathos. A Chorus of Disapproval, which explores ordinary people’s aspirations and disappointments, confirmed that reputation. Ayckbourn was knighted in 1987 in recognition of the extraordinary quality of his writing and his contribution to the British theatre.
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B[A]cknumbers is a compilation of music written by Alan Ayckbourn and Paul Todd. It was premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round in 1983 as a lunchtime entertainment and consists of two parts – each with 10 songs. By this stage, Alan and Paul had six collaborations between them (and a seventh one, Incidental Music, was concurrently running as a late-night show). The shows highlighted some of their songs created between 1978 and 1983.
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In this hard market for theatre, the only plays that can compete with song-and-dance shows are classic revivals and, even before his personal medical drama might have encouraged it, Ayckbourn was exploring his backlist. Apart from Ayckbourn's own re-examination of Intimate Exchanges, Kevin Spacey - a movie star who can project well past the fourth row - is staging The Norman Conquests at the Old Vic next year.
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