Absurd Person Singular

by Alan Ayckbourn

Published 1 January 1974
This volume is part of a new series of novels, plays and stories at GCSE/Key Stage 4 level, designed to meet the needs of the National Curriculum syllabus. Each text includes an introduction, pre-reading activities, notes and coursework activities. Also provided is a section on the process of writing,...Read more

A Small Family Business

by Alan Ayckbourn

Published 20 July 1987

Well, that's one down, isn't it. Nine to go. Next! Thou shalt not kill. What about that then? Let's have a crack at that one next, shall we?

Jack McCracken: a man of principle in a corrupt world. But not for long. Moments after taking over his father-in-law's business he's...

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Table Manners

by Alan Ayckbourn

Published 1 February 1975
In this play, Annie has arranged to spend an illicit weekend with her sister Ruth's husband Norman, and for this reason, suitably disguised, has asked her elder brother Reg and his wife Sarah to look after their widowed mother and the house. As it happens the seduction, thought or...Read more

Words of Advice

by Fay Weldon

Published January 1975

Round and Round the Garden

by Alan Ayckbourn

Published 1 February 1975
In this play, Sarah's desperate attempts to have a nice, civilized week end culminate, not surprisingly, in disaster. Ruth, Norman's wife, is summoned but Norman still contrives to cause havoc involving, finally, all three women. Matters are not helped by such events as the slow thinking Tom mistaking Ruth's...Read more

Living Together

by Alan Ayckbourn

Published 1 February 1975
Annie, the Cinderella of the family, lives in the shabby Victorian vicarage type house where the family was brought up. Reg, her brother, and his wife Sarah come to stay for a week end so that she may go away for a "rest". The general idea is that Annie...Read more

Henceforward

by Alan Ayckbourn

Published 10 October 1988

England's comic master is in a black comic mode in this West End hit about our fascination with technology. It is sometime quite soon in a steel shuttered, slovenly flat in a no go area of North London where punks rule deserted streets. Here, a lonely composer sits surrounded...

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I Love My Love

by Fay Weldon

Published 1 June 1984
Trendy magazine Femina offers two contrasting wives - country-bumpkin Anne and sophisticate Cat - GBP1000 to swap places for a week to compare lifestyles. Anne goes to London to run the chic apartment of Cat's advertising executive husband, while Cat journeys to deepest Devon to cook, clean and care...Read more

Action Replay

by Fay Weldon

Published 1 October 1980
This is a study of the shifting inter-relationships between three young couples, following the developments with sympathy and a certain ironic humour, through a span of twenty-five years.3 women, 3 men

Reading Group

by Fay Weldon

Published 1 June 1999
A witty, astutely observed study of sexual politics in contemporary society which centres on an all-female reading group. Oriole wants to study contemporary authors, while Anne prefers well-known classics. Pondering the relative merits, the women reveal themselves, their personalities echoing the literary heroines. But not everyone is there for...Read more

A Word from Our Sponsor

by Alan Ayckbourn

Published 1 January 1998
This futuristic musical is set in a small-town railway station, sometime all too soon. Harry Wooller, a vicar, is looking for sponsorship for his group's musical Mystery play. His call is intercepted by a dubious but immensely powerful source - Valda/Valder who alternates between male and female forms. Artistry...Read more

How the Other Half Loves

by Alan Ayckbourn

Published January 1973
There are three couples in this play, the men all working for the same firm. One of the younger men is having an affair with the wife of the oldest, and when each returns home suspiciously late one night or early one morning they invent a story about having...Read more

Things We Do for Love

by Alan Ayckbourn

Published 2 March 1998
A cruel and hilarious masterpiece of tragic comedy and comic tragedy . . . On all three levels of the house, people have fantasies and deep-seated misconceptions about each other and themselves, and Ayckbourn pierces through their carapace with the precision of a brain surgeon, releasing hideous pain and...Read more

An entertainment on marriage by George Melly, Alan Ayckbourn, James Saunders, Harold Pinter, Alun Owen, Fay Weldon, David Campton, Lyndon Brook and John Bowen.1 woman, 1 man or flexible casting

Callisto 5

by Alan Ayckbourn

Published 1 April 1995
Eight years of macaroni and cheese for breakfast, lunch and supper...It's enough to drive a boy crazy - until a new, unexpected, and rather dangerous creature arrives on Callisto 5.1 woman, 2 men

Revenger's Comedies

by Alan Ayckbourn

Published 18 November 1991

Henry Bell has come to the Albert Bridge to throw himself off because he has lost his wife and his job. Instead, he saves Karen Knightly who has thrown herself off the bridge already and is dangling by her caught coat. They spend a long night driving. Henry learns...

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Time and Time Again

by Alan Ayckbourn

Published 7 April 2015
The suburban house of the Bakers' adjoins a recreation field, which is useful since football and cricket play a large part in the story. Peter, who works for Graham, brings his fiancee to the house and Graham, as usual, makes a bee-line for her. However, it is Mrs. Baker's...Read more

The Arcadians

by Mark Ambient, etc., and Et Al

Published 1 March 1945
Who could tell, in the first decade of the twentieth century, what strange adventures might befall those who ventured to travel by the new-fangled aeroplane? A forced landing, perhaps, in some long-forgotten land where time has stood mercifully still. James Smith, of the well-known London catering concern, drops in...Read more

Dreams from a Summerhouse

by Alan Ayckbourn

Published 1 August 1997
The reigning king of English comedy strikes off in a new direction with this gleeful fantasy. A couple is preparing for an al fresco party while their hapless ex son in law is holed up in their summer house, drinking off his divorce while he completes illustrations for a...Read more