Word: ayckbourn
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...ALAN AYCKBOURN...
Truly comic characters appear onstage about as often as there is a lunar eclipse. That is what makes the arrival of Norman, the pint-sized anarchist of Alan Ayckbourn's trilogy, an occasion of happy terror. The most satisfying laughs are those induced by determined worms, and Norman is an Attila of the worm world...
Norman has a lot of cheek. So does Ayckbourn. He offers three views of the hectic 48 hours-in three different plays, which must be seen on different nights. The first, Table Manners, is about what happens in the dining room when it is not happening on the family hearth rug in No. 2, Living Together, or in the bushes in No. 3, Round and Round the Garden. Do not be alarmed. It is nothing like the Ring. The comedies interweave with the boisterous precision of a Scottish reel, and finally yield a picture of family life at once riotous...
Gumbooted Bears. Ayckbourn is one of England's funniest, most prolific playwrights, with a fine ear for middle-class patterns of speech. Sometimes his dialogue snaps back like Noel Coward's; at others, he evokes P.G. Wodehouse's rococo style. It is a shame that this production fails to do him or Norman justice. A man who envisions Australia in winter as an army of gumbooted koala bears and who can find menace in his pajamas ("The tops are alright-it's the bottoms you've got to watch") must be lovable. Richard Benjamin...
...Equus' triumph on Broadway is more than a personal one for Shaffer. It is also a tribute to the vitality of British theater. Once again this year Broadway has imported much of its excitement from London. Apart from Equus, the two most highly praised new plays are Alan Ayckbourn's farce Absurd Person Singular and Peter Nichols' black comedy The National Health. And next week the Royal Shakespeare Company's Sherlock Holmes will arrive from Washington, B.C., where it has played to record audiences...