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A SAMUEL FRENCH, LTD. TITLE
Full-Length Play, Comedy / 5w, 5m
Alan Ayckbourn
" Comic Potential hurts you with the sheer exuberance of its laughter and liberates you with its seriousness." - London Sunday Times
2000 Olivier Award nomination for Best Comedy
2000 Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play.
A sensation in London and New York, this is one of the funniest and most inventive plays by Britain's grand master of comedy. A hilarious satire of television and a touching romantic comedy, it begins in a television studio where a hospital soap opera is being taped. One actor starts speaking gibberish; he is an "actoid," a robot, and his programming is off-kilter. Adam, the young nephew of the producer and an aspiring writer who worships the director (once a great movie director and now a broken-down has-been), is on the set. Adam starts chatting with Jacie Tripplethree, the actoid (serial number JC333) playing the nurse and finds, to his surprise, that not only can she carry on a conversation but, due to what she calls a fault in her programming, she has a creative imagination. Adam wants to build a new television series around her, but the studio will not hear of it. He also finds he is falling in love with the charming robot! Will Adam get the green light on his series? Will love prevail? Jacie is one of Ayckbourn's greatest characters; her portrayer won all of London's major acting awards.
M5 (20s, 40s, 50s, 80s) F5 (20s, 30s, 40s)
A TV studio and various simple hotel settings
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A playwright and theatre director, to date Alan Ayckbourn has written 89 plays – Family Album attracted four-star reviews when it premiered in September 2022 at the Stephen Joseph, where nearly all his plays are first staged.
However, this year he will stage his 88th play Welc ...