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A SAMUEL FRENCH, LTD. TITLE
Full-Length Play, Comedy / 4w, 4m
Alan Ayckbourn
In this gleeful comedy set in three bedrooms, four couples struggle hilariously with the ups and downs of their rocky relationships.
Nominee: Five 1979 Tony Awards, including Best PlayNominee: 1977 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy
Alan Ayckbourn’s high-energy comedy was a long-running hit in London and New York. Trevor and Susannah, whose marriage 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, Bedroom Farce ruffles beds, tempers and domestic order, leading all the players to a hilariously touching epiphany.
In this raucous 1975 comedy, Ayckbourn brilliant combines elements of farce and claustrophobia, distilling the drama into three bedrooms over the course of one endless Saturday night. Cleverly manipulating time and space, Ayckbourn explores the ups and downs of four marriages: older Delia and Ernest, their son Trevor and his wife Susannah, young Malcolm and Kate, and Trevor’s ex-girlfriend Jan and her husband Nick. Gleefully contrasting the younger and older generations, Ayckbourn keeps adding complications and revelations that only seem to further damage the characters’ relationships. Yet somehow, the characters progress, develop and resolve their issues in their own way and pace.
ERNESTDELIANICKJANMALCOLMKATETREVORSUSANNAH
Three bedrooms. Saturday evening through Sunday morning.
“An enormously funny evening.” – Observer
“As funny as anything he has written.” – London Times
“Hilarious... The stuff of gleeful recognition.” – Evening Standard
“With deft skill, Ayckbourn shows marriage as an institution sustained more by ingrained habit than mutual excitement.” – The Guardian
ON BREAKING CHARACTER
Alan Ayckbourn in Five Plays8 April 2024
Alan Ayckbourn on Ideas
AlanAyckbourn on Writing a Well Made Play
Alan Ayckbourn on the Difference Between Then and Now
AlanAyckbourn on Getting Started
AlanAyckbourn on How to Approach His Plays
Alan Ayckbourn on Growing As a Dramatist
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 ...