Alan Ayckbourn

English playwrighter Alan Ayckbourn, born in London in 1939, is a popular and prolific writer. He has written and produced some sixty plays in Scarborough and London and is the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. Almost all of the 60 plays he has written to date received their first performance at this theatre. More than 25 have subsequently been produced in the West End, at the Royal National Theatre or the RSC since his first hit ‘Relatively Speaking’ opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1967. Major successes include ‘Absurd Person Singular’, ‘The Norman Conquests’, ‘Bedroom Farce’, ‘Just Between Ourselves’, ‘A Chorus Of Disapproval’,’ Woman In Mind’,’ A Small Family Business’,’ Man Of The Moment’ and ‘House & Garden’. His plays have won numerous awards - including seven London Evening Standard Awards. They have been translated into over 30 languages and are performed on stage and television throughout the world. They have also been filmed in French and English. Four of his plays have been seen on Broadway attracting two Tony nominations. In 1991, he received a Dramalogue Critics Award for his play ‘Henceforward...’ Because he is both popular and prolific, most theatre critics and scholars have until lately, ignored him. Although his plays have received major West End productions almost from the beginning of his writing career, and hence have been reviewed in British newspapers, Ayckbourn's work was for years routinely dismissed as being too slight for serious study. Recently scholars have begun to view Ayckbourn as an important commentator on the lifestyles of the British suburban middle-class and as a stylistic innovator, experimenting with theatrical styles within the boundaries set by popular tastes.