Download or read book Alan Ayckbourn Plays 4 written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2011-10-06 with total page 690 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Revengers' Comedies A hugely entertaining pitch that recalls the old movies to which it frequently pays homage - Strangers on a Train, Rebecca, Kind Hearts and Coronets - and expands after intermission to reveal an immensely disturbing vision of contemporary middle-class England poisoned by the rise of economic ruthlessness and the collapse of ethics. New York Times Things We Do for Love Lloyds Private Banking Playwright of the Year Award One of his best, his most shockingly and uproariously funny: a cruel and hilarious masterpiece of tragic comedy and comic tragedy. Sunday Times House & Garden The triumph of his ingenuity lies in the fact that you have to see both plays . . . A second time round, in whichever order you take them, characters will deepen, while those you know become the background. It is a superb Ayckbourn joke that a comedy about non-communication should depend on the sharpest communication skills. Sunday Times
Download or read book Comic Potential written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by Samuel French, Inc.. This book was released on 2002 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A play set in the foreseeable future when everything has changed except human nature; a future where TV daytime soaps are performed by android actors emotionally programmed by the control room. One, JC 31333, finds herself humanized as Jacie Triplethree, complete with a sense of humour and Adam, a young scriptwriter, falls for her.
Download or read book Table Manners written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by Samuel French, Inc.. This book was released on 1975 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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"--Publisher's website.
Download or read book Woman in Mind written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2014-07-17 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The central character of Alan Ayckbourn's new play is Susan, a parson's wife, 'one of the most moving and devastating that he has created...' Robin Thornber reviewing the first production in Scarborough in the Guardian.
Download or read book A Small Family Business written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by Samuel French, Inc.. This book was released on 1992 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jack McCraken has the opportunity of a lifetime: he 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 "--
Download or read book Confusions written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-12-04 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A student edition of five one-act plays by Britain's most popular playwright. Ayckbourn's series of plays for 4-5 actors typify his black comedies of human behaviour. First produced in 1976, the plays are alternately naturalistic, stylised and farcical, but underlying each is the problem of loneliness. The Mother Figure shows a mother unable to escape from baby talk; in The Drinking Companion an absentee husband attempts seduction without success; in Between Mouthfuls, a waiter oversees a fraught dinner encounter. A garden party gets out of hand in Gosforth's Fete whilst A Talk in the Park is a revue style curtain call piece for the five actors. Whether the comedies concern marital conflict, infidelity or motherhood and take place on a park bench or at a village fete, the characters are familiar and their cries for help instantly recognisable. "Principally he is respected as a radical re-inventor of form" Dominic Dromgoole
Download or read book Communicating Doors written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by Samuel French, Inc.. This book was released on 1999 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. She and two women who were murdered in 1998 and 1978 race back and forth in time trying to rewrite history and prevent their own violent ends. The frantic race begins when Poopay is hired for an evening at the Regal Hotel by an old man who eschews a fling in favor of confessing his role in the demise of his wives. Now a target, Poopay flees into the vestibule and somehow triggers the time machine. -- Publisher's website.
Download or read book Taking Steps written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by Samuel French, Inc.. This book was released on 1981 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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 fiancee, 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. The first act curtain finds the solicitor in bed with the wife thinking her to be a ghost and the fiancee inadvertently shut in the attic cupboard by the distraught tycoon who has taken refuge there in the spare bed. All this takes place in a highly ingenious and original setting in which all the rooms, passages and stairs are on a single level"--
Download or read book Time and Time Again written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by Samuel French, Inc.. This book was released on 1973 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Season s Greetings written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2010-12-02 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now we don't want to start Christmas like this, do we?Cheating at snakes and ladders, fighting over comic books, a bungled infidelity beneath the tree. Christmas has arrived in the Bunker household along with family and friends. But as the children lurk just out of sight, it's the adults who are letting the side down. I couldn't. Not in our sitting-room. Not in front of the television. Somewhere else. Presiding over the festivities are two warring uncles, one a kindly, incompetent doctor with an interminable puppet show to perform; the other a bullying retired security guard who dominates the TV, brings toy guns for his nieces and determines there's a thief in their midst. Alan Ayckbourn's masterly Season's Greetings offers a seriously entertaining look at the misery and high jinks of an average family Christmas. The play opens at the National Theatre, London, in December 2010.Three times I caught him at it. Ripping open presents, helping himself to the contents.
Download or read book The Crafty Art of Playmaking written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Crafty Art of Playmaking, this seminal guide from renowned playwright Alan Ayckbourn shares his tricks of the trade. From helpful hints on writing to tips on directing, this book provides a complete primer for the newcomer and a refresher for those with more experience. Written in Ayckbourn's signature style that combines humor, seriousness, and a heady air of sophistication, The Crafty Art of Playmaking is a must-have for aspiring playwrights, students of drama, and anyone who has ever laughed their way through one of Ayckbourn's plays.
Download or read book Sisterly Feelings written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by Samuel French. This book was released on 1981 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book Ernie s Incredible Illucinations written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by Samuel French Limited. This book was released on 1969 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a bright comedy by the famous English comic playwright about the extraordinary powers of Ernie Fraser, a dreamer with a difference. Ernie has a vivid imagination; and his thoughts have the disconcerting habit of turning into reality....
Download or read book Improbable Fiction written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by Samuel French Limited. This book was released on 2007 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Six aspiring authors meet on a winter's evening to discuss their work. The chairman, Arnold, attempts to get the rest of the group out of a rut by suggesting that they collaborate on a piece of writing, an idea that is received without enthusiasm. However, as Arnold is clearing up after the meeting there is a clap of thunder, a black-out.
Download or read book Henceforward written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: England's comic master is in a black comic mode in this West End hit about our fascination with technology. It is sometime quite soon in a steel shuttered, slovenly flat in a no go area of North London where punks rule deserted streets. Here, a lonely composer sits surrounded by high tech equipment. His only company is a robot nanny, and she's on the blink. He desperately wants to reclaim his teenage daughter and enlists an out of work actress to implement a cunning plan he's evolved to impress his estranged wife and a wired for sound child welfare officer. When things don't work out, Jerome has to improvise... It's amazing what can be done with new micro chips and a screwdriver
Download or read book Alan Ayckbourn Plays 4 written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fourth collection of Alan Ayckbourn's plays includes The Revengers' Comedies, Things We Do for Love, and House & Garden. The Revengers’ Comedies -- A hugely entertaining pitch that recalls the old movies to which it frequently pays homage - Strangers on a Train, Rebecca, Kind Hearts and Coronets - and expands after intermission to reveal an immensely disturbing vision of contemporary middle-class England poisoned by the rise of economic ruthlessness and the collapse of ethics. Things We Do for Love -- One of his best, his most shockingly and uproariously funny: a cruel and hilarious masterpiece of tragic comedy and comic tragedy. House & Garden -- The triumph of his ingenuity lies in the fact that you have to see both plays. A second time round, in whichever order you take them, characters will deepen, while those you know become the background. It is a superb Ayckbourn joke that a comedy about non-communication should depend on the sharpest communication skills.
Download or read book A Brief History of Women written by Alan Ayckbourn and published by Samuel French Limited. This book was released on 2020-11-18 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A Brief History of Women charts the life of Anthony Spates: from his first job as an adolescent footman at a country manor house through to his retirement as manager of the hotel the manor house became. Over the course of six decades, the play follows him and the remarkable women he has loved, left and lost over the years. A Brief History of Woman premiered in September 2017 at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough.."--
