Frequently Asked Questions: Writing
This page contains FAQs concerning Alan Ayckbourn and his playwriting career. If there is a question not listed here which you feel should be listed, please contact the website via the Contact Us page.1) Which acting role led Alan Ayckbourn to write his first play?
2) How many plays has Alan Ayckbourn written?
3) Where can I find a complete (numbered and dated) list of Alan Ayckbourn's plays?
4) Can I send scripts for Alan Ayckbourn to read / Can Alan Ayckbourn offer me advice on writing?
5) Why has there been confusion about the number of plays?
6) Alan Ayckbourn is frequently labelled as a farceur, is this correct?
7) Is Alan Ayckbourn a political writer?
8) Why have the early plays never been published?
9) Alan has said he tried to destroy all his early plays, is this true?
10) Which plays are not available for production and have not been published?
11) Which of Alan Ayckbourn's full length plays were written with end-stage performance in mind?
12) What are the Grey Plays?
13) Why is Intimate Exchanges considered one play rather than eight in the play canon?
14) What is the criteria for a play's inclusion into the full-length play canon?
15) Is there an Ayckbourn trilogy called Things That Go Bump?
16) What is The Divide?
1) Which acting role led Alan to write his first play?
Alan wrote his first play after complaining about the quality of his acting roles to Stephen Joseph, the Artistic Director of the Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre in Scarborough, who promptly challenged Alan to write a better role for himself. For many years it was stated that Alan’s role as Nicholas in Jon Van Druten’s Bell, Book And Candle was the role that drove Alan to complain. However, Paul Allen’s biography Grinning At The Edge conclusively proved this was impossible as Bell, Book And Candle was in the same season as Alan’s first play The Square Cat. Allen contended the likely actual candidate was the role of Eric which Alan played in David Campton’s Ring Of Roses during Christmas 1958 - something which David Campton later confirmed. As David Campton was a friend, Alan may have changed the 'inspirational' role during interviews so as not hurt Campton's feelings.
2) How many plays has Alan Ayckbourn written?
As of 2024, Alan has written 90 full-length plays. A complete list of Alan's full-length plays as well as his other writing can be found here.
3) Where can I find a complete (numbered and dated) list of Alan Ayckbourn's plays?
A complete playlist can be found here.
4) Can I send scripts for Alan Ayckbourn to read / Can Alan Ayckbourn offer me advice on writing?
Alan Ayckbourn no longer accepts script submissions nor offers advice to writers. Whilst Artistic Director at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round, he spent 37 years reading and evaluating scripts (and five years at the BBC from 1965 - 1970 doing the same) as well as advising writers. With his retirement from the theatre in 2009, he felt it was time to pass the torch onto other people so that he could understandably concentrate completely on his own writing and directing for the first time.
With regard to advice to writers and directors, he sincerely feels that everything he has to say on the subject can be found in his book The Crafty Art Of Playmaking (Faber, 2002) which is available via the website shop and through libraries.
5) Why has there been confusion about the number of plays?
For many years, the number of plays and the numbering of them was often inconsistent. This was largely due to Jeeves not being included in the list (presumably because it was a musical). Discrepancies have also cropped up over the years such as whether House & Garden is one or two plays (two), whether some of the revues should be included (no) and whether full length works such as The Karaoke Theatre Company should make the list (no). The list and numbering that now exists is considered definitive and this play-list can be found here. Officially, as of 2024, Alan Ayckbourn has written 90 full-length plays.
6) Alan Ayckbourn is frequently labelled as a farceur, is this correct?
No. It was a label lazily applied to Alan Ayckbourn early in his career by critics largely on the basis of the West End productions of his plays directed by people other than the playwright in which farcical elements may have been emphasised. Alan Ayckbourn believes he has written only one true full-length farce with Taking Steps; although there are heavy elements of farce in How The Other Half Loves, Love After All and The Square Cat. He has also written two one-act farces which together form Farcicals. Whilst elements of farce do appear in his writing, Alan Ayckbourn's plays do no objectively meet the requirements of pure farce. He now labels all his work as just 'plays'. And, before you ask, Bedroom Farce is not a farce; Alan Ayckbourn just liked the title!
7) Is Alan Ayckbourn a political writer?
No. He is completely apolitical in his writing and has spoken frequently about this throughout his career. In 2019, he noted: 'My characters have no politics because I don't really.' His writing reflects his own lack of interest in Politics and he has rarely voted and, even then, out of no loyalty to any particular Political party. Some of his quotes about his thoughts on Politics can be found here.
8) Why have the early plays never been published?
Alan has frequently said that every writer has a period when they are learning their craft and that these plays represent that period; as a result he would not be happy to have them published and definitely not performed.
9) Alan has said he tried to destroy all his early plays, is this true?
This was probably said in jest as at least one copy of all of Alan Ayckbourn's plays are now known to exist. However, Alan personally chose not to keep copies of his early plays, which led to the difficulty in tracing several of the early plays. Between 2005 and 2007, Alan's archivist Simon Murgatroyd recovered copies of all the previously thought lost scripts. A complete collection of Alan Ayckbourn's manuscripts is now held in the Ayckbourn Archive at the Borthwick Institute at The University Of York.
10) Which plays are not available for production and have not been published?
During 2020, Alan Ayckbourn compiled a definitive list of plays which are now considered permanently withdrawn and unavailable for production. These are: The Square Cat, Love After All, Dad’s Tale, Standing Room Only, Christmas V Mastermind, The Sparrow, Jeeves, The Musical Jigsaw Play and Virtual Reality. None of these plays have been published and, as of writing, only Making Tracks and Miss Yesterday also remain unpublished with all other plays published or due to be published.
11) Which of Alan Ayckbourn's full length plays have been specifically written for production in the end-stage?
There are six Alan Ayckbourn plays which were originally written with end-stage performance in mind (although several of these have been performed in the round). These plays are: Bedroom Farce, A Small Family Business, Haunting Julia, Things We Do For Love, Virtual Reality and All Lies. Although Jeeves and House were originally performed as end-stage plays, unlike the other plays they were not specifically written for end-stage performance.
The vast majority of Alan Ayckbourn's plays were written for performance in-the-round, but can be easily adapted to other staging configurations (with the exception of Taking Steps, which is intended specifically for performance in-the-round).
12) What are the 'Grey Plays'?
Alan Ayckbourn has written a number of plays which have been produced and performed, but which are not considered part of the official canon. Generally this is because the plays were written for a specific and unique event (An Evening With Palos for The Colin Blakely Memorial; Untitled Farce for the 50th anniversary of the Stephen Joseph Theatre) or because they were from Alan's earliest days as a writer and represent formative steps as a professional writer. Whilst all the plays have been produced in some forms, they have never been published and are no longer available for production. The 'Grey Plays' are: Double Hitch (one act, 1960); Love Undertaken (one act, 1961); Follow The Lover (one act, 1962); Dracula (one act, 1975); The Jubilee Show (revue, 1977); Backnumbers (revue, 1983); An Evening With PALOS (one act, 1987); The Fearsome Threesome (one act monologue, 1989); Ron & Julie (one act sketch, 1991); Between The Lines (revue by Paul Todd incorporating Ayckbourn songs, 1992); Untitled Farce (one act, 2005); Truth Will Out (full length, 2023); Father of Invention (full length, 2024). Full details can be found in the Plays section.
13) Why is Intimate Exchanges considered one play rather than eight in the play canon?
Intimate Exchanges is a branching play: from a common beginning, there are 16 possible variations of the play (although only eight of them are named). However as all the variations branch from a single source, they are counted as just one play. You can find out more about the play and its structure at the Intimate Exchanges section of the website. The same principle applies to other plays with multiple variations which cannot all be seen on the same night such as: Sisterly Feelings (four variations) and It Could Be Any One Of Us (three variations).
14) What is the criteria for a play's inclusion into the full-length play canon?
Generally speaking, it's fairly obvious which of Alan Ayckbourn's are part of his full-length play canon or whether they're classified as a 'revue', 'one act play' or other category. However, there are several instances where the decision is not so clear-cut, such as The Karaoke Theatre Company, which is a full-length piece (but which given much of it is improvised leads to it not being considered part of the play canon). In instances such as Consuming Passions and No Knowing (both short plays with two acts which can be performed separately), it is largely the playwright's preference (although, arguably, the reason Consuming Passions is considered a full-length play whereas No Knowing is not is Consuming Passions' two parts tell a complete story and do not make much sense seen independently, whereas No Knowing is - essentially - two one act plays with the same characters, but which do not need to be seen together, much like the Farcicals). Ultimately though, the criteria is down to the playwright and whether he considers a work to be part of the full-length play canon. The decisions on this website as to what constitutes a full-length play or any other category is one that has been taken in conjunction with the playwright and his wishes for how each play should be categorised.
15) Is there an Ayckbourn trilogy called Things That Go Bump?
No. It has inaccurately been reported that Alan Ayckbourn's three supernatural plays form a trilogy called Things That Go Bump; mainly incorrectly perpetuated by Wikipedia. This is incorrect as the plays have never been referred to by this title by the playwright himself, Alan Ayckbourn, nor does he consider them a trilogy. The misunderstanding arises from the fact the three plays (Haunting Julia, Snake In The Grass and Life & Beth) were presented in a season called Things That Go Bump at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in 2008. However, this title was purely for marketing purposes and has never been specifically used as an overarching name for the three plays by the playwright himself. Unfortunately, various reports and websites (notably Wikipedia) have inaccurately assumed the season title referred to an official trilogy title and since 2008 the plays have occasionally incorrectly been labelled as the Things That Go Bump trilogy. As of writing, the three plays are considered to be thematically connected but the playwright does not consider them a trilogy.
16) What is The Divide?
The Divide is Alan Ayckbourn's first novel, published in 2019 by PS Publishing. Written in 2015 by Alan Ayckbourn, The Divide marked a completely new direction for Alan Ayckbourn. It is set in a post-catastrophic England and is told through journals, diaries, reportage, transcripts and minutes. It was conceived and written as a novel with the playwright wanting the experience of writing unencumbered by the limitations of a staged play. It was, however, adapted for the stage (although not by Alan Ayckbourn) by The Old Vic as a staged production as part of the Edinburgh International Festival in 2017. This is neither the intended nor preferred version of The Divide. As conceived, written and published, it is a novel and should not be considered or described as a play.
All research by Simon Murgatroyd. Copyright of Haydonning Ltd.