Alan Ayckbourn: Grinning at the Edge [Hardcover]

Paul M. Allen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0826414125 | ISBN-13: 978-0826414120 | Publication Date: August 27, 2003

Alan Ayckbourn is Britain's most popular playwright and its most private. He has won numerous awards for his plays - including Absurd Person Singular, The Norman Conquests, Just Between Ourselves, A Chorus of Disapproval and Communicating Doors - and has worked with some of theatre's most celebrated names - Jane Asher, Richard Briers, Michael Gambon, Julia McKenzie, Penelope Keith, and Peter Hall. Feted from London to New York to Tokyo, he was knighted in 1997 for his services to the theatre. Yet he spends most of his time away from the limelight in a Yorkshire seaside town not writing at all but running a small repertory theatre.In this biography Paul Allen explores Ayckbourn's family background, looking at his unsettled and sometimes solitary childhood. There follows a hasty first marriage, the often farcical life of a frustrated young actor, and the setbacks and false dawns endured by the novice writer before he became the great comic hitmaker of the 1970s. Audiences since have been literally falling into the aisles or overloading theatre PA systems with the volume of their laughter, even as they register the seriousness of his preoccupation with man's inhumanity to woman. With the first-hand testimony of scores of colleagues who have worked with Ayckbourn at length in Scarborough as well as the more celebrated London collaborators, Allen traces the development of his more savagely comic critique of public life in the 1980s and '90s.This is a portrait of a man who - from Relatively Speaking in 1965 to his double play House and Garden at the National Theatre in 2000 - has chronicled human behavior, our aspirations and insecurities, while shaping the theatrical experience of millions.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Allen (critic, playwright, and BBC Radio broadcaster) presents the first full-length authorized biography of one of Britain's most popular and prolific 20th-century playwrights. Using dozens of interviews with people from all areas of Ayckbourn's life, Allen reveals a complex, brilliant individual who has contributed to the reshaping of British theater. Allen's sometimes rambling style seems to mirror the subject's life, from his early days as a teenage actor to his greatest successes as playwright and director. Ayckbourn's personal and professional experiences are interwoven with concurrent developments in British theater and in British society at large, providing insight into the playwright's extensive contributions to his country's literary life. The popular draw of Ayckbourn's plays (How the Other Half Loves, House, Garden) continues to be his genius in presenting serious issues of human behavior while keeping his audiences rolling with laughter. This biography shows that this genius stems from a very private man's personal style of dealing with life's challenges. Recommended for theater history collections. Laura A. Ewald, Murray State Univ., KY
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"If, in a hundred years, anyone wants to know what it was like to live in the second half of the 20th century, I am quite sure they will turn to the plays of Alan Ayckbourn before they look at historians or sociologists."
--Peter Hall

"A script arriving from Alan is manna from heaven. All you have to do is learn the text faithfully, follow his punctuation meticulously, and lo and behold you get a reputation as an Ayckbourn actress - and if he's directing, you sometimes win awards too."
--Julia McKenzie

"What he has given to the theatre is immeasurable. I take my hat off to him."
--Harold Pinter

"I am convinced that Alan's plays - along with Harold Pinter's - will be cherished by posterity. Maybe one day there'll be a Royal Ayckbourn Company."
--Michael Billington

"Alan is quite simply the most genuine theatrical animal I have ever met."
--Andrew Lloyd Webber

"Using dozens of interviews from all areas of Ayckbourn's life, Allen reveals a complex, brilliant individual who has contributed to the reshaping of British theater….Ayckbourn's personal and professional experiences are interwoven with concurrent develop

"Paul Allen has penned…an authorized, highly detailed personal and career biography of [Ayckbourn] that will surely be the the last word on the playwright for some time."
--Publisher's Weekly, April 29, 2002

"Amusing anecdotes."--East Bay Express

"Paul Allen's biography of Alan Ayckbourn captures both the playwright and his plays....the best overview of a brilliant dramatic career."
--Magill Book Reviews

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (August 27, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826414125
• ISBN-13: 978-0826414120
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,732,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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