Alan Ayckbourn is the Artistic Director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre and one of the world’s most popular and prolific professional playwrights. He has written 72 full length plays and more than 20 other revues and plays for children. He is also an internationally acclaimed director, who Arthur Miller said directed the definitive version of his play A View From The Bridge.

Alan was born in Hampstead, London, on 12 April, 1939. His mother was the novelist Mary ‘Lolly’ James and his father Horace Ayckbourn, lead violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra. Alan was educated at Haileybury public school in Hertford. At 17, he left school and joined the theatre impresario Sir Donald Wolfit’s acting company for three weeks, working as an acting assistant stage manager for the production The Strong Are Lonely. From there he went on to a stage management job at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing, before moving to the Thorndike Theatre, Leatherhead. He would also act at both theatres. In Leatherhead, he met Rodney Wood who took him to see a production of Huis Clos in London, performed in the round by Stephen Joseph's Studio Theatre Company. Rodney asked Alan to join him stage-managing for this company at their summer base at the Library Theatre, Scarborough – actually the converted concert room on the first floor of Scarborough’s Public Library.

Stephen Joseph got on well with Alan and became a mentor to the young man with Alan both stage-managing and acting with the company. His acting inadvertently led to his first professional commission as a writer when in 1958, Alan complained to Stephen about the roles he was playing. Stephen threw down the gauntlet that if Alan wanted better roles, he should write one himself. Alan wrote The Square Cat, which was a big success for the company in the summer of 1959. Stephen immediately commissioned a second play, Love After All, for the winter of 1959.

Alan continued to act and write for the Studio Theatre Company in Scarborough until 1962 when he was involved in the formation of the Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent, with Stephen Joseph and Peter Cheeseman. He premiered two plays there, Christmas V Mastermind and Mr Whatnot. The latter was produced in London in 1964 and received such a critical mauling that Alan retreated to the BBC in Leeds as a radio drama producer.

Alan directed his first play in 1961, Gaslight, at the Library Theatre and continued writing, producing Meet My Father for Scarborough in 1965. This would be a turning point in his life. In 1967, the play – retitled Relatively Speaking – opened in the West End and was a phenomenal hit. In the same year Stephen Joseph died and Alan, alongside Ken Boden, Alfred Bradley and Rodney Wood, worked together to keep the Library Theatre alive. Although Alan was closely involved with the theatre during this period, both writing, directing and choosing plays for the company, he would not formally take on the role of Artistic Director (then called Director of Productions) until 1972, a position he has retained ever since - aside from a two year hiatus between 1986 and 1988 when he became a visiting director at the National Theatre. Since 1977, he has directed all the West End premieres of his plays and is internationally renowned for his writing. Plays such as The Norman Conquests trilogy are now regarded as classics of 20th century British theatre. His plays are often described as being middle-class and suburban, although this is a rather dated view of his work. While the description would be generally correct for his work during the 1960s and 1970s, since the 1980s Alan’s work has become ever more  expansive, dealing with wider social issues and often utilizing more fantastic ideas and settings to explore his themes. He has also become a passionate advocate of writing for families and young people and has written more than a dozen full length plays for that audience, together with a number of one-act plays for children. If one was to generalize about Alan’s large body of work over five decades, it would be that he writes about men and women, their relationships and their general inability to live with each other. His work is also characterized by its tragi-comedy themes and his constant willingness to experiment with stage time and space. This has led the renowned critic Michael Billington to label him as one of the few British playwrights to be constantly pushing the envelope of theatre.

Alan is also committed to theatre-in-the-round, for which he has written the vast majority of his plays. It is always worth remembering that when he stages a play in London or any are performed in the proscenium arch, it is a step away from the author’s original intention. It has frequently been stated that the definitive production of Alan’s plays is the premiere production in the round in Scarborough.

Alan has a close relationship with Scarborough, where he lives and has worked for most of his professional career. He has been artistic director of what is now the Stephen Joseph Theatre since 1972 and has premiered all but four plays (Christmas V Mastermind, Mr Whatnot, Jeeves and A Small Family Business) in Scarborough.

More than half his plays have gone on to London to be produced in the West End or at the National Theatre. At one point in 1975, he held the record for having the most professional productions being performed simultaneously in the West End (The Norman Conquests, Absurd Person Singular and Absent Friends). His work has been translated into more than 35 languages and his plays are regularly performed throughout the world.

He has received more than 25 awards and honours including an Olivier, a Moliere, the Variety Club of Great Britain Playwright of the Year and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Lifetime Achievement Awards. The 1992 Cameron Mackintosh Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University, he until recently has been Visiting Professor at the University of Hull. In 1994, he received a Montblanc de la Culture Award for Europe for ‘establishing a thriving theatrical tradition in Scarborough and for his dedication and commitment to it’. In addition to holding a number of honorary degrees, he was appointed a CBE in 1987 and in 1997 was knighted for services to the theatre.

Alan’s plays have been regularly produced in America and more than 10 of his plays have been produced on Broadway and Off-Broadway. In 1975 he held the record of having the most plays simultaneously running on Broadway (The Norman Conquests and Absurd Person Singular) However, he would probably consider his greatest success in America came in 2005, when he took his Scarborough company to the 59E59 Theaters’ Brits Off Broadway Festival to present Private Fears In Public Places. The month-long run was an unprecedented success receiving great acclaim from audiences and critics alike. The New York Times proclaimed it “altogether wonderful” and the cast “flawless”. In 2007, his production of Intimate Exchanges also toured to the Festival where it broke box office records at the 59E59 Theaters and received a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Play.

In February 2006, Alan suffered a stroke but later that year was directing his new play If I Were You. In June 2007, he announced he was to step down as the Artistic Director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre.  He will officially leave the position in March 2009, but hopes to continue directing the premieres of his new plays and revivals at the theatre. In 2008, Alan premiered his first plays written since his stroke, Life And Beth and Awaking Beauty.

Copyright: Simon Murgatroyd 2008

A regularly updated mini-biography, suitable for reproducing in programmes, is also available for free use by clicking here.

* For further details about Alan's position as Artistic Director and the confusion over the year he took the job, click here. ** For further details about Alan Ayckbourn stepping down as Artistic Director, click here.