Alan Ayckbourn facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE FRSA
Ayckbourn in 2010
Born	(1939-04-12) 12 April 1939 (age 86) Hampstead, London, England
Occupation	Playwright, director
Period	1959–present

Sir Alan Ayckbourn (born 12 April 1939) is a very famous British playwright and director. He has written and directed over 90 full-length plays. Most of his plays first opened at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, England. He was the artistic director of this theatre from 1972 to 2009.

Many of his plays have been shown in London's West End, at the Royal National Theatre, or by the Royal Shakespeare Company. His first big hit was Relatively Speaking in 1967. Some of his other well-known plays include Absurd Person Singular (1975), The Norman Conquests (a group of three plays from 1973), and Bedroom Farce (1975).

Ayckbourn's plays have won many awards, including seven London Evening Standard Awards. They have been translated into more than 35 languages and are performed all over the world. Ten of his plays have even been staged on Broadway in New York, earning him two Tony nominations and one Tony award.

About Alan Ayckbourn

His Early Life

Alan Ayckbourn was born in Hampstead, London. His mother, Irene Worley, was a short story writer. His father, Horace Ayckbourn, was a violinist who played for the London Symphony Orchestra. His parents separated when he was young. His mother later remarried.

Alan wrote his first play when he was about 10 years old at his boarding school. He also traveled around Europe and America with his school's Shakespeare acting group.

Becoming an Adult

After finishing school at 17, Alan took on different temporary jobs. He then started working at the Scarborough Library Theatre. There, he met the theatre's director, Stephen Joseph, who became a very important mentor to him.

Alan married Christine Roland in 1957. They had two sons, Steven and Philip. They later separated in 1971. Many years later, in 1997, Alan married Heather Stoney, an actress he had known for a long time.

In 2006, Alan had a stroke. He recovered and continued to write and direct. The following year, he decided to step down as the main artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre. However, he still writes and directs his own plays there.

How His Life Influenced His Plays

People often wonder if Alan Ayckbourn's plays are about his own life. He has said that he sees parts of himself in all his characters. For example, he felt he was like all four men in his play Bedroom Farce. Some people also think his mother inspired characters like Susan in Woman in Mind.

It's true that many of his plays in the early 1970s focused on marriages having problems. This was around the time his own marriage was ending. However, he had also seen other relationships fail, so it's not clear which ones influenced his writing. Alan Ayckbourn is known for being a private person. It's believed he doesn't directly share his personal life in his plays.

His Career in Theatre

Starting as an Actor

Alan Ayckbourn's theatre career began right after school. He joined a theatre company and worked as an acting assistant stage manager. This meant he acted in plays and also helped with behind-the-scenes work. His first professional acting role was in a play called The Strong are Lonely.

In 1957, he started working for director Stephen Joseph at the Library Theatre in Scarborough. This is where he got his first chance to write a play. Stephen Joseph challenged him to write a better script after Alan complained about one he was performing. The result was The Square Cat, which opened in 1959. Alan himself acted in this play.

He acted in many plays, including some of his own. In 1962, he moved to Stoke-on-Trent to help start the Victoria Theatre. He stopped acting in 1964 to focus more on writing. His last acting role was in a play where a prop issue left him stuck on stage. This made him decide that acting was too much trouble!

Becoming a Playwright

Alan Ayckbourn's first play, The Square Cat, was popular locally. But his next few plays didn't have a big impact. His play Christmas v Mastermind was considered a big failure.

Things improved in 1963 with Mr. Whatnot. This was the first play he was happy with and it was even performed in London's West End. However, the London show didn't do well. After this, Alan worked with comedians like Tommy Cooper and Ronnie Barker.

In 1965, he wrote Meet my Father, which was later renamed Relatively Speaking. This play was a huge success in Scarborough and in the West End. Even famous playwright Noël Coward sent him a congratulatory message! While his next play, The Sparrow, didn't do well, his following play, How the Other Half Loves, made him a very successful playwright.

The peak of his success came with plays like Absurd Person Singular (1975), The Norman Conquests (1973), and Bedroom Farce (1975). These plays often looked at marriages in British middle-class families. The only play that didn't do well during this time was a musical with Andrew Lloyd Webber called Jeeves.

From the 1980s, Alan started exploring other topics beyond marriage. For example, Woman in Mind is told entirely from the point of view of a woman having a nervous breakdown. He also experimented with unique play structures. Intimate Exchanges has one beginning but sixteen possible endings! In House & Garden, two plays happen at the same time on two different stages. He also wrote plays for children, like Mr A's Amazing Maze Plays.

With over 70 plays, Alan Ayckbourn is one of England's most successful living playwrights. Most of his plays have premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. He received the CBE award in 1987 and was knighted in 1997, becoming "Sir Alan Ayckbourn". Many people believe he is the most performed living English playwright, second only to William Shakespeare.

Even after suffering a stroke, Alan continued to write. His play Life and Beth premiered in 2008. He keeps trying new things in theatre. For his play Roundelay (2014), the audience picks the order of the acts, creating 120 possible versions!

In 2019, Alan Ayckbourn published his first novel, The Divide. During the Covid lockdown, his plays Anno Domino (2020) and The Girl Next Door (2021) were adapted for radio and online streaming. In 2022, his play All Lies premiered outside Scarborough for the first time in about 60 years.

Directing Plays

Even though he's famous for writing, Alan Ayckbourn spends most of his time directing plays. He started directing at the Scarborough Library Theatre in 1961.

At first, he directed plays by other writers. It wasn't until 1963 that he directed one of his own plays. In 1967, after Stephen Joseph passed away, Alan became the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in 1972.

In the mid-1980s, he worked as a visiting director at the Royal National Theatre in London. He formed his own acting company there. In 1999, he decided to focus only on directing his own plays.

After a disagreement in 2002, Alan criticized how theatre was being handled in the West End, especially the use of celebrities in roles. He didn't direct there again until 2009.

After his stroke in 2006, he returned to directing in September of that year. He retired as artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in 2007 but still directs his new plays and revivals there. In 2014, he directed a musical version of The Boy Who Fell into A Book.

Awards and Recognition

Alan Ayckbourn has received many awards for his work:

• 1973: Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy (for Absurd Person Singular)
• 1974: Evening Standard Award for Best Play (for The Norman Conquests)
• 1977: Evening Standard Award for Best Play (for Just Between Ourselves)
• 1981: Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from University of Hull
• 1985: Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy (for A Chorus of Disapproval)
• 1985: Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy (for A Chorus of Disapproval)
• 1986: Freedom of the Borough of Scarborough
• 1987: Evening Standard Award for Best Play (for A Small Family Business)
• 1987: Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)
• 1989: Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy (for Henceforward...)
• 1990: Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy (for Man of the Moment)
• 1997: Knight Bachelor (meaning he became "Sir Alan")
• 2008: Inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame
• 2009: Laurence Olivier Special Award
• 2009: The Critics' Circle annual award for Distinguished Service to the Arts
• 2011: Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from York St. John University

He is also a patron of the Next Stage Theatre Company, an amateur theatre group in Bath.

List of His Works

Full-length Plays

One-Act Plays

Alan Ayckbourn has written eight shorter plays, called one-act plays. Five of these were for his play Confusions, first performed in 1974. These are Mother Figure, Drinking Companion, Between Mouthfuls, Gosforth's Fete, and Widows Might.

His other three one-act plays are:

• Countdown (1962), known as part of Mixed Doubles.
• Ernie's Incredible Illucinations (1969), written for schools to perform.
• A Cut in the Rates (1984), which was also made into a BBC documentary.

Books Written by Ayckbourn

• Ayckbourn, Alan (2019) The Divide. UK: PS Publishing. ISBN 978-1-786364-47-0.

Films Based on His Plays

Some of Alan Ayckbourn's plays have been made into movies:

• A Chorus of Disapproval (play) became A Chorus of Disapproval (1988), directed by Michael Winner.
• Intimate Exchanges became Smoking/No Smoking (1993), directed by Alain Resnais.
• The Revengers' Comedies became The Revengers' Comedies (also called Sweet Revenge) (1998), directed by Malcolm Mowbray.
• Private Fears in Public Places became Cœurs (2006), directed by Alain Resnais.
• Life of Riley became Life of Riley (2014), directed by Alain Resnais.

See Also

In Spanish: Alan Ayckbourn para niños