Download An authorised guide to Alan Ayckbourn`s Bedroom Farce Written

An authorised guide to
Alan Ayckbourn‘s Bedroom Farce
Written and researched by
Simon Murgatroyd
The Alan Ayckbourn Guides are a series of publications relating to
some of the most significant of the playwright Alan Ayckbourn‘s plays.
They are a combination of information, education and resource guides
incorporating general and detailed histories, interviews, background
notes, discussion points and other useful material pertaining to the
plays.
Each publication is designed to serve a wide audience from general
interest in the plays to students looking to study and discuss the plays.
The Alan Ayckbourn Guides are produced and compiled by Simon
Murgatroyd and approved by Alan Ayckbourn. Simon Murgatroyd is
Alan Ayckbourn‘s Archivist and the administrator for the playwright‘s
official website www.alanayckbourn.net.
Alan Ayckbourn's Official Website is a non-profit making educational
and information resource offering the world‘s largest single collection
of information on Alan Ayckbourn and his writing.
Bedroom Farce (The Alan Ayckbourn Guides)
Written and researched by Simon Murgatroyd © 2007
Published in 2007 (revised in 2009) by Alan Ayckbourn‘s Official Website at
www.alanayckbourn.net (email: [email protected])
All material in this publication is copyright of the respective copyright holder.
Permission is given to reprint extracts for educational purposes but must not be used
for any commercial purposes or within public performance related material without
permission of the copyright holders.
All images are copyright of the respective photographers and / or organisations and
should not be reproduced or stored in any form.
The cover features the image used for the National Theatre‘s American tour of
Bedroom Farce. Image copyright: National Theatre
- The Alan Ayckbourn Guides -
Index:
I. Introduction To Bedroom Farce
Timeline
In bed with Bedroom Farce: A brief introduction
Alan Ayckbourn: A biography
Major production details
4
5
6
8
II. The Play
Synopsis
Bedroom Farce: An in-depth history
The critical reaction (world premiere)
The critical reaction (London premiere)
9
10
15
16
III. Writing And Producing The Play
When a farce is not a farce
Writing Bedroom Farce
Designing Bedroom Farce
Designing the composite set
The set in relation to the play
Period in Alan Ayckbourn plays
Acting Ayckbourn
18
19
20
21
23
24
25
IV. Final Thoughts
Alan Ayckbourn on Bedroom Farce
The aftermath
V. Further Reading
26
27
29
3
Part I: Introduction To Bedroom Farce
Bedroom Farce: A Timeline
16 June 1975
Bedroom Farce world premiere at the Library Theatre, Scarborough
1 March 1977
National Theatre production of Bedroom Farce premieres at Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham
16 March 1977
Bedroom Farce London premiere at the Lyttelton, National Theatre (closes 17/08/1978)
19 September 1977
National Theatre production tours to Bristol Hippodrome
29 September 1977
First professional repertory production at the Nottingham Playhouse
1977
Chatto & Windus publish Bedroom Farce in the collection Three Plays
7 November 1978
National Theatre production transfers to the Prince Of Wales Theatre, London
1978
Samuel French Ltd publish the acting edition of Bedroom Farce
1 January 1979
Bedroom Farce officially released for production by repertory theatres
January 1979
Oxford Playhouse production marks the first repertory tour of Bedroom Farce
22 January 1979
National Theatre production begins Canadian / American tour in Toronto
29 March 1979
National Theatre production opens on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, New York
28 September 1980
ITV broadcasts the National Theatre‘s production of the play (repeated on Channel 4 on 13
July 1983)
21 September 2000
Alan Ayckbourn directs revival at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough
26 March 2002
Pre-West End try-out of Bedroom Farce opens at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford
8 April 2002
West End revival of Bedroom Farce opens at the Aldwych Theatre, London
1 October 2009
Sir Peter Hall revives Bedroom Farce at the Rose Theatre, Kingston
4
In Bed With Bedroom Farce: A Brief Introduction
Bedroom Farce is one of Alan Ayckbourn‘s most famous and popular plays, largely due to a
phenomenally successful production at the National Theatre which transferred to the West
End, toured to America and was even broadcast on television.
Peter Hall commissioned the play for the National Theatre, although it was premiered at the
Library Theatre, Scarborough, in 1975. The play would open at the recently opened National
Theatre in 1977 and was a substantial commercial success for the theatre; it did have its fair
share of detractors in the press who questioned why the National Theatre was producing such
a populist play by a popular writer; some observers felt it would have been better suited to
the West End.
Ironically, the play was produced at the same time as Just Between Ourselves opened in the
West End; a far darker dissection of relationships that did not equal the success of Bedroom
Farce. Although the National Theatre was in need of a popular and financially successful
piece, the plays could well have swapped venues as the National Theatre audience may have
been a little more comfortable with the darkness of Just Between Ourselves which arguably
alienated West End audiences expecting a lighter piece from Alan Ayckbourn.
The production at the National Theatre was both Alan‘s first commission by the prestigious
company and the first London production to be directed by him, setting the precedent for the
vast majority of London premieres of his work to follow. It is interesting to note that although
it is credited as being co-directed by Alan and Peter Hall, it is no great secret that when Alan
turned up for the rehearsal period, Peter Hall largely left Alan to direct the play.
The success of the National Theatre production led to a transfer to the West End followed by a
short Canadian / USA tour which culminated in the play opening on Broadway, where it
picked up Tony nominations for Best Play and Best Direction. The National Theatre‘s
production was adapted in 1980 for television with many of the original cast. This is one of
the more successful filmed adaptations of Alan‘s work and the broadcast was so popular that
ITV proposed to Alan a spin-off series centred around the characters of Ernest and Delia; with
the intent of Michael Gough and Joan Hickson reprising their acclaimed roles. This idea, which
Alan was not terribly keen on, eventually fell through.
Alan Ayckbourn revived the play at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in 2000. He
staged it in both the Round and the McCarthy auditoriums, the first and thus far only time he
has staged one of his productions in both auditoria. This production was also successfully
toured.
The play was revived in the West End in 2002 marking the 25th anniversary of the National
Theatre‘s production. Despite a cast which included Richard Briers, this was an unsatisfactory
revival and combined with the problems surrounding Alan‘s West End production of his
Damsels In Distress trilogy, led to him imposing what would turn out to be a five year
moratorium on West End and touring productions of his work.
Bedroom Farce remains one of the few plays to be directed by Alan in the round, thrust and
end-stage productions. When it premiered, the layout of the play - written with the National‘s
Lyttelton auditorium in mind - defeated the limitations of the Library Theatre and it was
staged three-sided. It was performed end-stage at the National Theatre and Alan would only
get the chance to direct it in the round with the 2000 revival.
For the record, Bedroom Farce is not actually a farce. As Alan Ayckbourn has pointed out
many times it has farcical elements but is not a pure farce. Alan just liked the title and, as
was so common with his plays from that period, it was set in stone long before he put pen to
paper. It‘s also notable as being possibly the only play set in a bedroom where neither of the
things most associated with that room take place!
5
Alan Ayckbourn: A Biography
Alan Ayckbourn is 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
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 Irene Maud Worley – better
known as the novelist Mary James - and his father
Horace Ayckbourn, lead violinist with the London
Symphony Orchestra.
Educated at Haileybury, Alan left school at the age
of 17 to pursue a career in the theatre
immediately gaining a job with the theatre
impresario Sir Donald Wolfit. He was with the
company for three weeks as an acting stage
manager for the production The Strong Are Lonely
at the Edinburgh Festival. Alan went on to work at
theatres in Worthing, Leatherhead and Oxford,
before being employed in 1957 as a stage
manager and actor at the Library Theatre,
Scarborough.
The Library Theatre had been founded in 1955 by
Alan Ayckbourn in the Stephen Joseph
Stephen Joseph and was home to the UK‘s first
Theatre (Tony Bartholomew©2005)
professional theatre in the round company, Studio
Theatre Ltd. Alan was inspired by Stephen Joseph, who became a mentor to the young man
and encouraged him to both write and direct. Alan‘s first professional writing commission was
inadvertently inspired by his acting career when he complained about a role he was playing;
Stephen threw down the gauntlet saying that if Alan wanted better roles, he should write one
himself. Alan wrote The Square Cat. This was a success for the company in the summer of
1959 and Stephen immediately commissioned a second play, Love After All.
Alan continued to act and write for the Library Theatre until 1962 when he was involved in
the formation of the Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent, with Stephen Joseph and Peter
Cheeseman. This was the country‘s first permanent professional theatre in the round and Alan
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 where he worked between 1964 and 1970.
Alan continued writing, though, and produced Meet My Father for the Library Theatre 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.
It launched him into the public eye and in quick succession, plays such as How The Other Half
Loves, Absurd Person Singular and The Norman Conquests, established Alan Ayckbourn as
one of the country‘s most popular and successful playwrights. As of 2009, he has written 73
full length plays, more than half of which have transferred to either the West End or 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.
Stephen Joseph died in 1967 and Alan, alongside Ken Boden, Alfred Bradley and Rodney
6
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 become Artistic Director until 1972. Apart from a two year
hiatus between 1986 and 1988 when he became a visiting director at the National Theatre, he
remained Artistic Director until retiring from that role at the end of 2008.
Concurrent to this, Alan‘s directing career also flourished. He directed his first play in 1961,
Gaslight, at the Library Theatre and in 1967, for the first time directed the world premiere of
one of his own plays, The Sparrow. Since 1967 he has directed the world premieres of all his
plays and since 1977, he has directed all the West End premieres of his plays. Since 1961,
Alan has directed more than 260 productions and is considered one of the world‘s preeminent directors of in the round staging.
He is hugely committed to theatre-in-the-round, for which he has written the majority of his
plays. It is always worth remembering that when he stages a play in London or they 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, where he has premiered all but four of his plays.
Alan Ayckbourn has received more than 25 awards and honours including two Oliviers, a
Moliere and Lifetime Achievement Awards from both the Variety Club of Great Britain and the
Writers‘ Guild of Great Britain. He was the 1992 Cameron Mackintosh Professor of
Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University and is also the recipient of 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 2009, he was inducted into American Theater‘s
Hall of Fame and received the prestigious Society's Special Award at the Laurence Olivier
Awards. The holder of a number of honorary degrees, he was appointed a CBE in 1987 and in
1997 was knighted for services to the theatre.
His plays have been regularly staged in America and more than 10 have been produced on
Broadway and Off-Broadway. In 1975 he held the record for having the most plays
simultaneously running on Broadway (The Norman Conquests and Absurd Person
Singular). However, he would probably consider his greatest success in the States 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 59E59
Theaters and received a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Play.
In February 2006, Alan suffered a stroke leading to
the announcement in June 2007 that he would step
down as the Artistic Director of the Stephen Joseph
Theatre. He would officially step down in 2009 but
has expressed a commitment to continue to premiere
and produce plays at the venue in the future.
Alan Ayckbourn in 1975
(© Scarborough Theatre Trust 1975)
In 2009, Alan transferred his acclaimed Scarborough
production of Woman In Mind to the West End,
revived How The Other Half Loves and Man Of The
Moment as well as premiere a new play My
Wonderful Day, which will transfer to New York
immediately after its world premiere run in
Scarborough. The Old Vic's acclaimed 2008 revival of
The Norman Conquests also transferred to Broadway
where it received several notable awards including a
Tony for Best Revival. 2009 also marks both Alan
Ayckbourn‘s 70th birthday and the 50th anniversary
of The Square Cat.
Copyright: Simon Murgatroyd 2009
7
Bedroom Farce Major Production Details
Bedroom Farce World Premiere
Opening night: 16 June 1975
Venue: The Library Theatre, Scarborough
Cast
Ernest
Delia
Nick
Jan
Malcolm
Kate
Trevor
Susannah
Stanley Page
Heather Stoney
Stephen Mallatratt
Janet Dale
Bob Eaton
Eileen O’Brien
Christopher Godwin
Polly Warren
Production Staff
Director
Alan Ayckbourn
Design
Helga Wood
Bedroom Farce London premiere
Opening night: 16 March 1977
Venue: The Lyttelton at the National Theatre, London
Cast
Ernest
Delia
Nick
Jan
Malcolm
Kate
Trevor
Susannah
Michael Gough
Joan Hickson
Michael Kitchen
Polly Adams
Derek Newark
Susan Littler
Stephen Moore
Maria Aitkin
Production Staff
Director
Alan Ayckbourn & Peter Hall
Design
Timothy O’Brien & Tazeena Firth
Bedroom Farce Scarborough Revival
Opening night: 21 September 2000
Venue: Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough
Cast
Ernest
Delia
Nick
Jan
Malcolm
Kate
Trevor
Susannah
Geoffrey Whitehead
Joanna Van Gyseghem
Paul Raffield
Sherry Baines
Peter Temple
Katy Secombe
Michael Shaw
Diana Morrison
Production
Director
Design
Lighting
Music
Staff
Alan Ayckbourn
Pip Leckenby
Kath Geraghty
John Pattison
Production
Director
Design
Lighting
Music
Staff
Loveday Ingram
Lez Brotherston
Paul Pyant
Paul Englishby
Bedroom Farce London Revival
Opening night: 8 April 2002
Venue: Aldwych Theatre, London
Cast
Ernest
Delia
Nick
Jan
Malcolm
Kate
Trevor
Susannah
8
Richard Briers
June Whitfield
Nigel Lindsay
Samantha Spiro
Jasper Britton
Suzy Aitchison
Jason Watkins
Rose Keegan
Part II: The Play
Bedroom Farce: Synopsis
Bedroom Farce takes place over the course of one night in three bedrooms, all present on
stage.
Ernest and Delia are about to embark on a rare foray out for their anniversary dinner, but
Delia is concerned about their son Trevor and his wife, Susannah. Delia believes he should
have married the more ‗resilient‘ Jan. The meal is a disaster and by the end of the first act,
the couple are enjoying pilchards on toast in bed.
At Jan and Nick‘s house, Nick is lying incapacitated in bed and Jan is about to go to Malcolm
and Kate‘s house-warming party, although Nick suspects Trevor‘s presence is also a factor for
her going. She leaves and Nick subsequently falls out of bed. Unable to move, he spends the
first act in varying states of distress on his bedroom floor.
At the party, where the bedroom is acting as a cloakroom, Trevor arrives – without Susannah
- and reveals he and Susannah are not getting on; she promptly arrives in a distraught state.
She and Kate chat about their relationships and the paranoid Susannah tells her she believes
she revolts Trevor. He comes to see her; they end up fighting and ruin the party. Trevor and
Jan have a heart to heart in which he is revealed to be a rather spoilt, immature and
temperamental man who can‘t see how badly he treats people. They kiss, just as Susannah
enters the room; she leaves greatly upset and Kate, much to Malcolm‘s annoyance, says
Trevor can sleep over. Trevor decides he has to put things right with Jan and Nick first.
Jan returns home to find Nick stranded. She eventually gets him onto the bed and tells him
about the kiss – their relationship too is hardly at its best. Trevor arrives and confesses all to
Nick, before falling asleep on the bed.
In frustration, Malcolm has decided to assemble the dressing table he bought as a present for
Kate. As they wait for Trevor to return, the pair discuss their relationship, Kate revealing how
unsatisfied she is.
Meanwhile, Susannah has fled to Ernest and Delia and tells all to Delia. Delia dishes out
words of wisdom, Ernest is consigned to the spare room leaving Susannah to sleep with Delia.
Early the next morning, Susannah determines to call Trevor. She discovers he‘s slept at Jan‘s.
In a state, she manages to contact him, they make peace but not before Trevor‘s been to
Malcolm and Kate to apologise. There, he manages to destroy the dressing table but is
reconciled with Susannah. But will anything change?
Images from the original production
of Bedroom Farce at the Library
Theatre, Scarborough.
Scarborough Theatre Trust © 1975
9
Bedroom Farce - An In Depth History
Bedroom Farce marks a significant turning point
in both Alan Ayckbourn‘s writing and directing
career. Yet the play‘s popularity and a
perception of it as lightweight has often led to it
being dismissed – even Alan has admitted he
had problems with the play‘s success. However,
this is a significant play both for him and the
nascent National Theatre building.
In 1975, the National Theatre moved to its
purpose-built home on London‘s South Bank
under the direction of Peter Hall; a move that
was not without controversy and which would
generate questions about the National Theatre‘s
purpose and place, some of which are still being
debated today. Hall was already an admirer of
Alan
Ayckbourn‘s
writing,
having
been
introduced to his work with the 1973 London
production of Absurd Person Singular. As a
result, Alan was formally approached in January
1974 to provide a play for the Lyttelton as part
of the National Theatre‘s first season. Alan
agreed and provided Peter Hall with a title for
the play at least a year in advance of actually
writing it. Although Alan would not write the
play until May 1975, an interview with the
Sunday Times in June 1974 confirmed he
already had some firm ideas. ―I‘m going to call
The programme for the original production
it Bedroom Farce, A Comedy. I‘m worrying
of Bedroom Farce
about it a bit because I‘ve never written for the
posh fellers before. It‘ll have everything about
bedrooms but copulation, something which I believe is hardly practiced in the British bedroom
anyway.‖ The title was later shortened to just Bedroom Farce, but commenting on the original
title Alan noted: ―I thought I‘d confuse the issue.‖ Later he may have regretted not keeping
the title when some critics took issue with the fact Bedroom Farce was not really a farce,
despite Alan never saying it was. In the meantime, Alan‘s immediate concerns was the
imminent premiere of Jeeves, his musical collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Jeeves opened at Her Majesty‘s Theatre, London, on 22 April 1975 and closed on 24 May
1975. It was a notorious musical flop, but despite its very public failure Alan was not as
downcast as might be expected: ―I remember going in to see the cast on the last night and
not feeling too bad about it as I had just finished Bedroom Farce that day.‖ It‘s doubtful
whether the cast felt the same way!
As was typical of practically all Alan‘s writing at the time, the play was delivered at the last
possible moment and even by Alan‘s standards, it was a particularly tense time as Peter Hall
recalls: ―It [Bedroom Farce] was due to rehearse on a Monday; he started writing it on the
previous Wednesday, wrote all day Wednesday and most of the night, all day Thursday and
most of the night, all day Friday and most of the night; on Saturday he typed it out, and on
Sunday armed with some duplicated copies he drove up to Scarborough. He gave it to the
cast on Monday morning, and after the reading collapsed in bed for two days. He said this
was the kind of pressure he needed, and usually induced, to write a play.‖ So late was the
script, Alan did not send it to his agent Margaret Ramsay – better known as Peggy – for
another week. At the same time, Alan asked Peggy to pass the script on to his usual West End
producer Michael Codron, as he was not confident Hall would like the piece. He needn‘t have
worried, Hall ―liked it very much‖ and noted ―I love the serious observation underlying the
comedy.‖ Ironically, Codron liked the script too and arranged that should Bedroom Farce
transfer from the National Theatre to the West End, it would become a joint production
between the National and Codron.
10
Bedroom Farce opened at the Library Theatre, Scarborough, on 16 June 1975. Commercially
the play was very successful, but it received mixed critical notices. While all agreed it was an
enjoyable play, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian had particular issues with regard to
Trevor and Susannah‘s characters. It was obvious the play would alter; commissioned for an
end-stage, Alan had difficulty adapting it to the limited confines of the Library Theatre and
ended up staging it in a three-sided / thrust production rather than the usual round.
Peter Hall came to see the play and despite certain reservations was sure it would work at the
National. Hall was now planning to open the play in autumn 1976 and was already compiling
a wish-list of actors which included Ralph Richardson and Peggy Ashcroft. The production
would later be moved back to 1977.
Bedroom Farce marked the first time Alan would direct the London premiere of one of his
plays, although he had been directing the world premieres of them since 1967. It had been
agreed that Peter Hall and Alan Ayckbourn would co-direct the play – presumably to reassure
the National Theatre that Alan was not flying solo on his first directorial credit both in London
and at the National. It was a cleverly engineered ruse by Hall. Due to existing commitments,
Alan could not attend the first week of rehearsals. By the time he arrived, Hall had blocked
the piece and announced he could be found next door, having purposely scheduled conflicting
rehearsals for Volpone. Although both men are credited as co-directors, to all and intents it
was Alan‘s piece. Rehearsals were scheduled for an extraordinary eight weeks – Alan was
used to just four at Scarborough.
The production received its premiere at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, on 1 March 1977
as part of a short pre-London tour. Originally the play was due to visit the Theatre Royal,
Norwich, but when the manager refused to pay the National Theatre 65% of the box office,
the National pulled the production and opted to visit Birmingham followed by the New
Theatre, Cardiff. The premiere at the National Theatre on 16 March 1977 was met with an
effusive reaction by the critics. The vast majority of the reviews were positive and most of the
original concerns were forgotten.
The one reservation voiced by several critics was why such a light piece by a popular
playwright was at the National Theatre rather than in the West End. This was unexpectedly
emphasised by the fact Michael Codron opened Alan‘s Just Between Ourselves on 20 April
1977. By far the less commercial play, Just Between Ourselves is extremely dark and led to
serious discussion as to whether the plays were in the right venues. Alan was adamant
Bedroom Farce was the right choice for the National at a difficult time: ―I think I was
sensible not to try and write a very serious play for the National: it would have been
absolutely fatal suddenly to change my whole style. I wrote them a very jolly play: it had its
moments, but it was jolly…. The National was at one of its low ebbs - it had had a lot of
technical problems and a lot of bad press, and people were asking, `Why is all the national
funding going to this?' I think what Bedroom Farce did at the time - which was really nice was to provide the building, if not with its first, certainly with one of its earliest big
hits. It certainly lifted the morale: it was during that terrible period of the strikes, and all
that business with pickets. There had been a lot of very ugly feeling around.‖
A montage of the various programmes for the National Theatre’s production
11
Peter Hall felt the play had been an
―enormous success‖ and that it had been a
―joyous experience‖ working with Alan,
even going so far as to ask him to write
another play for the autumn 1978 season.
Alan would return in 1980 with Sisterly
Feelings.
Ensconced in rep at the National, the play
briefly toured to Bristol Hippodrome in
September 1977 and would run in the
Lyttelton until 17 August 1978; initial
expectations were the play would close in
February 1978. Its success, however,
generated its own problems as there was
an almost immediate clamor for the play by
the regional repertory theatres. Naturally,
the National turned down all such requests
except for the Nottingham Playhouse. A
decision which generated a considerable
amount of bad feeling. On 29 September
1977, the first professional rep production
opened at that theatre with the apparent
blessing of the National. Naturally, a
number of other companies now felt they
should be allowed to stage the play but all
were rebuffed by the National and,
particularly damaging, the finger was
pointed at Alan. It is not clear whether this
was a misunderstanding on the National‘s
part, but Alan‘s agent Peggy soon found
herself
writing
to
several
companies
explaining
Alan
―was
not
the
prime
mover‖
The programme for the New York premiere of
in
an
attempt
to
diffuse
an
already
complex
Bedroom Farce
situation. This was to no avail, as in
October Alan received a strongly worded letter from the Liverpool Playhouse that to all
intent blamed him for the whole situation. Mortified by this, Alan insisted there could
never again be selective releases of his plays. As the debate continued and Peggy
defended Alan‘s position making absolutely clear his indisputable support and respect
for regional repertory theatre, it highlighted to Alan a potential pitfall of his popularity.
If anything he felt the plays were too successful and this would lead to an inevitable
backlash. His instinct was to stop the West End being flooded with his plays and try to
feed them in at suitable intervals, much as they were at Scarborough: ―My only reason
for stopping release of plays personally has to do with the traffic jam of material
flowing on to the market. Quite marvellous and very gratifying. I‘m horribly aware
though that with all these simultaneous releases – the result of several years‘ writing –
I get the reputation of ‗a play a day‘ man. Also untrue. Also The Guardian gets ratty
after a bit.‖ Bedroom Farce was eventually released for professional production on 1
January 1979. The Liverpool Playhouse opened it on 5 January 1979 and the first
repertory tour would be launched by Oxford Playhouse in the same month.
By April 1978, Bedroom Farce had become the National‘s longest running show in
repertoire and in its first year was seen by 140,429 paying audience members. Such
was the play‘s success, the National decided to transfer it to the West End in
association with Michael Codron. Initially scheduled for an 11 week run – later
extended, Bedroom Farce opened with a new cast at the Prince Of Wales Theatre on 7
November 1978.
The majority of the original cast meanwhile crossed the Atlantic for a Canadian /
American tour of the play. It opened in Toronto on 22 January 1979 for four weeks,
before going to Washington for five weeks. Bedroom Farce then opened at the Brooks
Atkinson Theatre, New York, on 29 March 1979 where it would run for 276
12
performances. The reviews were largely excellent – including the all important New
York Times – although business was disappointing. Various explanations were offered
for this, but Alan conceded it might all be a matter of expectations: ―[The National
Theatre] spelled great acting and classical theater, and I think that put off people who
might have enjoyed a funny evening. The audience for a ‗National Theatre show‘ were
in turn put off by the idea of a lightweight commercial play.‖ Despite this, the play was
nominated in the Tony‘s for Best Direction and Best Play with Joan Hickson and Michael
Gough winning Best Supporting Actor awards.
The National were not finished with the play though, having just signed a £180,000
deal with Granada Television to broadcast six plays over two years. As a result,
Bedroom Farce – with much of the original cast still intact – was transmitted on ITV
on 28 September 1980 and was a ratings hit. The success of this adaptation was
further emphasized when the British Film Institute chose to screen it at the National
Film Theatre in 1998 as part of its Popular Television Of The ‗70s And ‗80s film festival.
The massive success of the play, though, did not sit easily with Alan, particularly when
later plays such as Joking Apart were not as well received. By 1981, it was on the
record he resented the play – although as has been frequently noted, Alan tends to
favour the less well appreciated of his plays: ―I‘m rather cheesed off with Bedroom Farce
at the moment. I‘ve had quite enough of that…. I never really liked Bedroom Farce very
much. Yes, I did: I got to like it quite a lot. I felt rather extraordinary when I wrote it,
though. I didn‘t quite know why I‘d written it. It was very strange. It cropped up in the
middle of my serious phase. This rather jolly play suddenly arrived. And I think I was rather
rude to it. I said to it, ‗I‘m an Absent Friends man now, a much more serious dramatist.‖
The success of the television adaptation now led to an unexpected development. Granada had
beaten the likes of both EMI and Universal pictures to make a film of the play; the success of
which had not gone unnoticed. In 1981,
Thames Television proposed the idea of
developing a sitcom spin-off, based
around the characters of Ernest and
Deliah. Alan was approached after Joan
Hickson and Michael Gough had expressed
interest in the proposal. Alan was wary of
the idea, having deliberately steered clear
of television and saw a number of
potential pitfalls: ―I‘m very wary about
spin-offs.
Characters,
established
somewhat cryptically with a few pen
stroke and comparatively few lines of
dialogue can over-inflate horribly or shrink
to nothing.‖ He also noted the production
would founder if Michael and Joan did not
reprise their roles. Alan declined an offer
to write the script, but left the door open
for someone else with a proviso. ―I feel
quite strongly, though – no, very strongly
– that you must be careful; where you
take the two of them. I think were I
writing them, I‘d keep them very much
within the confines of the house. Ernest
and Delia make only occasional forays
elsewhere. They mistrust it.‖
Thames decided to move on with the idea
and began negotiating with the playwright
Peter Tinniswood to write the pilot and
suggested 25 half-hour episodes to Alan
beginning production in September 1982.
The programme for Alan Ayckbourn’s revival of
Despite
Alan‘s
advice
about
the
Bedroom Farce at the Stephen Joseph Theatre,
characters, which Tinniswood had agreed
Scarborough, in 2000
with, Thames was still discussing moving
13
Ernest and Delia out of the house for
―adventures.‖ In a difficult position, Peter wrote
the
pilot,
which
Joan
Hickson
found
unsatisfactory: ―I find it distasteful and no more
like them than chalk from cheese. What it all
boils down to is that no one on Earth could
possibly write them but you who created them.‖
Joan pulled out and Alan decided to put a stop
to it all. He wrote to the producer Michael Mills
who agreed the idea had run out of steam,
particularly as Michael Gough was now
unavailable. Thus ended an intriguing twist in
the story of Bedroom Farce.
Bedroom Farce had meanwhile quickly become
a popular work with professional and amateur
companies, both at home and abroad. It was
published in 1977 as part of the Three Plays
collection by Chatto & Windus, later Penguin
and it remains the only Ayckbourn that Penguin
has continually published since 1979. Samuel
French published the acting edition in 1978, the
same year it was published in America.
Despite Alan‘s early reservations about the play,
he did return to it in 2000 at the Stephen
Joseph Theatre, Scarborough. He successfully
directed it in the Round and then re-directed it
for the end-stage McCarthy, prior to touring.
This is the first and only time Alan has staged
The programme for the problematic 2002
one of his plays in both auditoria at the SJT.
revival of Bedroom Farce at the Aldwych
The play was a critical and commercial success
Theatre, London
and offered a unique opportunity to finally see
how Alan had originally hoped to stage the play at the Library Theatre, alongside the staging
it was originally commissioned for by the National Theatre.
The success of Alan‘s own 2000 production was dampened slightly by a high profile West End
production, ostensibly marking the 25th anniversary of the play‘s premiere at the National
Theatre. Alan‘s regular London producer, Michael Codron, mounted a revival in 2002 which
opened at the Aldwych Theatre on 8 April, following a short pre-West End try-out in Guildford
and Richmond. On paper, the project must have looked promising with Richard Briers making
a welcome return to the West End in an Ayckbourn play, joined by popular actress June
Whitfield; together playing Ernest and Delia. Directed by Loveday Ingram, the play gained
satisfactory reviews but the final result was a disappointment. In solitude this might not have
had a profound impact, but it came on the heels of the much-publicised problems with Alan‘s
Damsels In Distress trilogy at the Duchess Theatre in the same year. Alan has never had an
easy relationship with London and the combination of this history combined with two London
productions which became problematic for very different reasons, led Bedroom Farce to
become the final Ayckbourn play to appear in the commercial West End for five years as Alan
imposed a moratorium on both West End and major tours of his plays.
Fittingly, it was Bedroom Farce which also ended this moratorium as, in 2007, the first major,
non-Stephen Joseph Theatre produced tour of an Ayckbourn play was announced for five
years. With experienced Ayckbourn director and actor Robin Herford at the helm, Bedroom
Farce began a national tour offering the chance for audiences across the UK to once again
experience what is undoubtedly one of Alan Ayckbourn‘s most popular works.
Later the same year, the West End moratorium on his plays was lifted with an acclaimed
production of Absurd Person Singular at the Garrick, followed in 2008 by The Old Vic‘s
acclaimed and award-winning production of The Norman Conquests. As of writing, the latest
major Ayckbourn production to be announced for London is the 2009 revival of Bedroom
Farce at the Rose Theatre, Kingston, directed by Sir Peter Hall; the man responsible for
bringing the play to the National Theatre in 1977.
14
Bedroom Farce Reviews (World Premiere)
This is a selection of extracts from the reviews of the world premiere production of Bedroom
Farce at the Library Theatre, Scarborough, in 1975. They offer a good contrast with the
London and New York reviews of the plays.
The Guardian (Stephen Dixon)
This funny, truthful little play is set entirely in various bedrooms and by the end we have
indeed been told a lot about the eight characters involved…. It‘s stylish and witty and would
no doubt go down well in the West End like the other Ayckbourn comedies but there is I think
a flaw in the piece, and I can‘t make up my mind whether it‘s in the writing or in Christopher
Godwin‘s interpretation of Trevor.
The Stage
One thinks of farces as swift moving comedies with characters chasing each other from
bedroom to bedroom but Ayckbourn does it ―his way‖ and wins almost continuous laughter.
Quick changes of temper, dress and lighting keep things moving briskly among the three
beds on stage.
Daily Telegraph (Eric Shorter)
What he [Ayckbourn] does, with an enviable lightness of touch, is to sketch four marriages
viewed in turn, and to make one of them impinge inconveniently on the others. What he
cannot do is to make the impinging couple sympathetically convincing. They are ill-adjusted,
quarrelsome, self-conscious, and inarticulate in their efforts to communicate mutually.
Spilling out their emotions on their tolerant friends, they cause havoc wherever they go.
Scarborough Evening News
As Ayckbourn romps boldly through his colourful caricatures depicting varying degrees of selfobsession he stumbles only once, and that is when briefly faced with painting comparative
normality…. Despite a liberal sprinkling of slapstick, the ―farce‖ relies on the comedy of
character. Each actor takes his turn to invite the audience to laugh at his absurdity. Not a line
was lost, not one invitation refused.
Yorkshire Post (Desmond Pratt)
―He [Ayckbourn] has an acute observation of people and their multiple vulnerable points, an
uncanny ear for the subtleties of conversation. Yet even when he is showing us foolishness,
he is humorously aware of the inadequacies of man and woman, and above all else his
characters are warm and lovable human beings.‖
Al Hirschfeld’s
portrait of the
cast of the
National
Theatre
production’s
of Bedroom
Farce, printed
in the New
York Times
(25 March
1979)
15
Bedroom Farce Reviews (London Premiere)
Bedroom Farce opened in London to predominantly excellent reviews, the extracts below offer
a taste of what was said—positive and negative—about the play.
Daily Express (Herbert Kretzmer)
The play is built not on the shifting sands of stand and [sic] comedy routine but in the
concrete foundation of acute character observation. There has not been laughter like this
since the National Theatre opened its doors.
Daily Telegraph (John Barber)
Here the plot is tenuous and somewhat protracted with a plethora of short scenes of only
revue-sketch strength. But the characters are swiftly identifiable and the whole thing is
ingeniously crafted and slips down like cream…. Mr Ayckbourn is a poet of life‘s minor
irritations.
Evening Standard
If one of the functions of the National is to provide a show-case for Britain‘s leading
dramatists then Mr Ayckbourn deserves a place in the pantheon alongside Pinter, Osborne,
Bolt and others. For Mr Ayckbourn‘s track record of success and output bids soon to make
him the Feydeau of the English stage. And if Feydeau‘s nonsense can achieve the status of
classic, why not Ayckbourn‘s?
Financial Times (B.A.Young)
Mr Ayckbourn‘s characters do not make jokes. There are no lines in Bedroom Farce funnier
than ―Did you have a nice evening?‖ But the situations in which characters find themselves
are grotesque parodies of situations familiar to everyone, and the characters react to them as
they really might if they were subjected to such extremes.
International Herald Tribune (John Walker)
The play is as deft and as funny a comedy as Mr Ayckbourn has yet written, which means
that it is extraordinarily deft and extremely funny. It is difficult to analyze just why he is so
brilliant a comic writer and, ultimately, the reason doesn‘t matter. It is enough to sit and
laugh heartily at the genteel eccentricities of middle-class life, at those compulsive patterns of
behaviour, strangely regarded as normal, which we all share.
Punch (Sheridan Morley)
Ayckbourn‘s new Bedroom Farce is a painfully funny play about people in trouble…. A classic
of the genre, arguably his best play to date and certainly on a par with both The Norman
Conquests and How The Other Half Loves….
Like Feydeau and Wedekind before him, Mr Ayckbourn is a uniquely funny chronicler of
human and marital despair, and it comes therefore as no real shock that the closing moments
of Bedroom Farce consist of a lady in the dark telling herself that there's nothing to be afraid
of. There is of course everything to be afraid of, not least mankind‘s inhumanity to mankind.
Sunday Telegraph (Frank Marcus)
Bedroom Farce contains many familiar ingredients but is adroit and efficient for all that….
Bedroom Farce is better than most farces currently to be seen.
The Guardian (Michael Billington)
Bedroom Farce is a wickedly funny play about the blithe inconsiderateness of the suffering.
Cocooned in selfishness, they reduce the lives around them to ruins. And while Ayckbourn has
touched on this theme before, I don‘t think he has handled it with quite such precision as he
does in the second act of this beautifully rhythmed play.
16
The Times (Irving Wardle)
[Bedroom Farce] marks the return of Ayckbourn the virtuoso technician and comic gymnast.
Already two years old, the play may not represent his present line of work, but it is as funny
as anything he has written.
The Stage (Douglas Blake)
The new play sets out to make people laugh, and it succeeds with Ayckbourn‘s customary
facility at exposing the foibles of the characters he chooses to examine.
The Observer (Robert Cushman)
Bedroom Farce introduces us to Mr Ayckbourn the director (credit shared with Peter Hall),
hitherto unknown outside of Scarborough and a very sharp and welcome operator. This is one
of the best balanced accounts of his plays to reach London…. It is not in decibel terms, an
enormously hilarious evening: the main pleasure at the time comes from seeing Mr
Ayckbourn solve his latest puzzle, threading his story through three rooms with only one
lapse of credibility towards the end. In retrospect, though, one admires the psychological
patterning as much as the technical. The relationships illuminate one another as they
interlock; a stray barb fixes each one.
What’s On (Kenneth Hurren)
Bedroom Farce is superior Ayckbourn…. They [Trevor and Susannah] are, as you may guess,
those familiar Ayckbourn people, catalysts among the pigeons, whose disruptive impact on
the lives of others is generally unwitting but invariably fairly traumatic…. There is some pain
here and there, as they go about their disruptions and a little scraping of emotional scar
tissue, but no one is actually left bleeding. The mood is lightsome, the progress of events
frequently hilarious.
Bedroom Farce In New York
Although Bedroom Farce was not an overwhelming commercial success in New York, it is
often forgotten that it received one of the best critical receptions for any Ayckbourn play in
America and ranks with Absurd Person Singular and Private Fears In Public Places as being
one of the best-received New York productions of his work. Below is an extract from Richard
Eder‘s review for the all-important New York Times; a bad review from which is more than
capable of closing a show on Broadway.
New York Times (Richard Eder)
The title is a central joke and a central seriousness as well. Mr. Ayckbourne [sic] has given us
another episode in his running serio-comic commentary on British knottedness.
Knottedness, not kinkiness: his characters are simply people for whom the shortest distance
between two emotional points is a tangle; and who are too beset by doubts, timidities and
chronic self-complication to have time for anything as straightforward as sex.
Bedroom Farce has less real pain than many of Mr. Ayckbourne's comedies. It is one of his
sunniest, and one of his funniest as well. It is airborne Ayckbourne; if it makes a serious point
or two it is mainly a dazzling exercise in comic complexity, exercised pretty much for its own
sake and our benefit by eight splendid actors from Britain's National Theater, jointly directed
by Mr. Ayckbourne and Peter Hall….
Bedroom Farce is a splendid comic mechanism. It begins in mere wit, as its pieces warm up
one by one. For a while we seem to be offered not much more than a lively cleverness, and
the mechanics of construction- the quick flashing back and forth from bedroom to bedroom are a bit bothersome.
But farces, like airplanes, may rattle and shake as their engines get going. What is important
is that they fly, and along about the middle of the first act Mr. Ayckbourne's play is in full
flight and carrying us quite helplessly along with it.
17
Part III: Writing And Producing The Play
When A Farce Is Not A Farce
When originally performed in London, some critics took exception to the fact Bedroom Farce
was not actually a farce - a fact Alan has never disputed. So what is farce and why isn‘t
Bedroom Farce one of them? And, ultimately, does it matter?
What is a farce?
Traditionally a farce is a play with broad humour, numerous complications and a generally
improbable plot. The term farce derives from the Latin word farcire (meaning ‗to stuff‘) and
early farces can be traced back to early Greek and Roman theatre. Farce was also a common
element in medieval plays dating back to at least the 13th century and also the commedia
dell’arte.
Farce as a distinct genre in itself can be dated back to the 16th century; however it did not
reach its prime until the 18th and 19th century when short farces would often be presented
as light relief after a tragedy! Among the most notable writers of farce during this period are
Feydeau and Pinero.
What a contemporary audience most obviously recognises as farce though is a 20th century
creation and is often termed the ‗bedroom farce‘ (see below). Although Alan Ayckbourn was
labelled a farceur early in his career, he has actually only written one true farce, Taking
Steps. His early plays contain farcical elements, but otherwise do not fit into such obvious and
easy categorisation.
The ‘bedroom farce’
Just to confuse matters, there is also a genre of writing known as the ‗bedroom farce‘. This is
typically a British tradition most associated with the ‗Whitehall Farces‘ (written during the
1950s and ‗60s), featuring Brian Rix, and to a certain extent the ‗Aldwych Farces‘ written by
Ben Travers during the 1920s and 1930s. ‗Bedroom farce‘ tend to involve broad comedy,
often with mistaken identities, loss of clothing, double entendres and innuendo.
Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce
Which leads to Alan Ayckbourn‘s Bedroom Farce, which is not a true farce in theatrical terms.
It could be considered a farce in the non-theatrical sense of the word in that nothing goes to
plan and little of the activities most associated with bedrooms (sleep and sex) take place in
the plays‘ bedrooms. There are farcical elements (Kate‘s loss of clothes, Nick‘s attempts to
build the drawers), but this is not a broad, innuendo-driven play with characters caught
inflagrante at inopportune moments.
Does all this matter? Not really. Alan Ayckbourn found a title he liked and applied it to the
play. That the play was not a pure farce seems only to have irritated several critics who
should have known better. One suspects Alan even knew some people would pick this up as
in an early interview, he announced the title as Bedroom Farce: A Comedy, just to show he
was aware of the mischief he was creating. Alan‘s plays have always defied easy
categorisation and are most commonly associated with tragicomedy. But if justification is
needed, who better to state his case than Alan Ayckbourn….
―Comedy, I read somewhere, consists of larger than life characters in real situations. Farce,
on the other hand, portrays real characters projected into incredible situations. Bedroom
Farce is a comedy about real characters who, projected into incredible situations, start
behaving in a larger than life manner as the situations appear to them too horribly real. I‘m
with Chekhov on this, as a matter of fact. He called his plays comedies or farces whenever he
felt like it, probably to confuse Stanislavsky.‖
18
Writing Bedroom Farce: Alan Ayckbourn‘s View
This is an extract from a detailed piece Alan Ayckbourn about his experiences writing
Bedroom Farce for the Stephen Joseph Theatre‘s 2000 revival of the play and its subsequent
tour.
Early in 1975, I collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber on one of the great musical disasters
of the decade, the earlier Mark 1 version of Jeeves. Recoiling from the scathing, occasional
downright gleeful criticism we justly deserved, I consoled myself by setting about writing my
obligatory yearly Scarborough summer play. In the time honoured tradition, I announced the
title long before a word was written. The play was thrust into the actors‘ hands at the first
read-through, having been finished the night before and unread til then by any of them.
Slightly less traditionally though, on this occasion the title actually bore some resemblance to
the play I was to write. I‘d decided to call it Bedroom Farce.
I am often asked where I get my ideas from as if somewhere I have this large box secretly
buried, to which I cautiously return every year under cover of darkness. I sometimes wish I
had. In fact, play ideas usually come from various sources and numerous quite random
directions. Some arrive mere fragments but then hopefully combine with other fragments to
create some sort of whole. These are a few of them…
Someone jokingly remarked after The Norman Conquests that there were very few rooms left
in the house for me to visit – except the bedroom and the bathroom. (The bathroom came
later in A Small Family Business). I stored the idea of a bedroom away for later. Though
even at that juncture it crossed my mind that if I did write a bedroom play it might be more
interesting and unusual to avoid those more predictable elements of bedroom behaviour,
namely sexual activity and sleeping.
A year or so earlier, Sheila Hancock had invited Peter Hall to see Absurd Person Singular in
which she was appearing at the Criterion theatre. Peter subsequently wrote to me suggesting
I do something for the new National Theatre which was shortly to open. I took a trip round
its South Bank site, in particular to view the shell of the incomplete Lyttelton Theatre. My
first impression was that it was less a theatre, more a football stadium. I had never written
for such a vast stage. Overall the acting area was probably some ten times the size of the inthe-round arena I was used to. I decided the only way to tackle such a space would be to
divide it. A multiple location set was called for; not one bedroom, then, but several.
During one long Scarborough season, in the days when the company all tended to live
together in one rented boarding house, I had got into one of those post show, late night
conversations with a troubled actor busily recounting the recent failure of some personal
relationship. His wife? His lover? His mother? I forget. At around 2am when everyone else
had retired, I also made my excuses but the unfortunate man was too far gone – a mixture of
tiredness, emotional trauma and alcohol – to take the hint.
Eventually, abandoning
politeness, I left and went upstairs to my bedroom where my wife was already in bed.
Oblivious, the actor followed me and, uninvited, sat on my bed still in full flow. As he droned
on, I undressed and joined my wife in bed. Finally lights were switched off and she and I
eventually fell asleep, lulled by the reassuring drone of his voice. In the morning we
discovered him curled up at the foot of our bed like some large dog. One that I was later to
name Trevor.
To all this you should add my firm belief in the power of number three, the source of much
good comedy (do it once, they‘ll look up, do it twice, you‘ll have their attention, do it a third
time and they‘re ready to laugh) and Bedroom Farce was all but written. Three beds, three
bedrooms, three couples and a fourth couple straight from their wildest nightmares.
The only drawback occurred when we first tried to stage it on the tiny Library Theatre stage.
The three beds required wouldn‘t fit on it. In the end, we pulled out an entire seating block
and did it in a three sided format.
© Alan Ayckbourn 2000
19
Designing Bedroom Farce
Bedroom Farce is design-wise and technically far more complex than it first appears. This is
largely due to the cinematic nature of the piece where there are frequent short scenes
moving swiftly from one bedroom to the next. The play was commissioned for the end-stage
and, as the designer Michael Holt demonstrates later, the use of cross-cutting and fading
through lights enhance this cinematic feel. However, despite its apparent limitations as a set,
it is the only Ayckbourn play to have been directed by Alan Ayckboun in-the-round, end-stage
and three-sided / thrust. What may at first glance appear to be quite a rigid set can, by virtue
of a clever director and designer, offer a wealth of possibilities for staging as shall be explored
in the next few pages.
The Set
This is the description of the set as it appears in the published version of the play.
The first bedroom is Ernest and Delia's. It is large and Victorian, in need of re-decoration. The
furniture, including a double bed, bedside tables, dressing-table, etc., are all sturdy,
unremarkable family pieces. There is a phone by the bed. A door leads to the landing and the
rest of the house, another to a bathroom
The second bedroom is Malcolm and Kate's. This is smaller, probably a front bedroom in a
terrace house which they are in the process of converting. It is sparsely furnished, a brand
new bed, unmade, being the centrepiece. There is in addition a small stepladder. One of the
walls has been re-papered, the rest are stripped. In one corner is a cardboard package,
unopened. There is a phone by the bed. One door leads to the landing, and the rest of the
house
The third bedroom is Nick and Jan's. This is furnished in a more trendy stvle, with a brass
bedstead and some interesting antique stuff. There are rugs on the floor and a phone by the
bed. A single door leads off to the bathroom and everywhere else.
The Composite Set
Bedroom Farce utilises a composite set; a set which features multiple fixed locations on one
set. This is quite rare in Alan Ayckbourn‘s plays and can pose important problems for the
designer. Here Alan Ayckbourn explains why he chose to use a composite set and the
potential pitfalls they can pose.
―These do work occasionally: I employed them in Bedroom Farce and Wildest Dreams.
However, Bedroom Farce was actually written that way only because Peter Hall had asked me
to write something for the newly completed Lyttelton Theatre, and I could not for the life of
me think how to fill that big wide stage. So I divided it into three and wrote a play set in
three different bedrooms.
The problem with composite sets, if you're not careful, is that apart from dividing the stage,
they also divide the audience. Especially if, like me, you write for the round or an open stage.
Some of the audience will have one of the sets continually in their foreground. Therefore, if
the stage contains three separate locations, say, those people will be watching two thirds of
the action across the distance of another set. Moreover, they will tend, because it's in their
foreground, to regard this set as being the most important one even when you don't. In
addition, because of the demands of the play, this set closest to them may occasionally have
characters not currently in use, sleeping, dreaming, relaxing, or generally frozen, trying to
keep a low profile so as not to distract from the far scene that's in progress.
The result of this, as I say, is a divided audience: a defocusing of attention. For some reason,
audiences always find anyone frozen or doing very little on stage utterly riveting, despite the
best efforts of the main protagonists who are giving their all in another part of the stage.‖
(© Alan Ayckbourn: The Crafty Art Of Playmaking, Faber & Faber, 2002)
20
Designing The Composite Set For Bedroom Farce
Although Alan Ayckbourn‘s original production of Bedroom Farce was presented three-sided /
thrust, the play was designed for the end-stage but has proved to be very adaptable for
other theatre forms. Below are reprinted designs for all the Ayckbourn productions of the play
to offer an idea of how the play can be altered to suit different spaces and staging.
End Stage
Bedroom Farce was commissioned for the Lyttelton Theatre at the National Theatre. This was
an end-stage venue and the set was designed by Timothy O‘Brien and Tazeena Firth. Note all
the bedrooms exit at the same point to allow swift movement between the bedrooms.
(Design reprinted from the published edition © Samuel French)
In 2000, Alan Ayckbourn revived Bedroom Farce at the Stephen Joseph Theatre,
Scarborough. He directed it in both the round and end-stage. The design by Pip Leckenby
below is for the end-stage production which was also a touring set. Again note the use of a
corridor to connect all three bedrooms. (© Pip Leckenby / Scarborough Theatre Trust)
21
Three-Sided / Thrust
The original production was staged three-sided at the Library Theatre, Scarborough, as the
limitations of the venue prevented Alan Ayckbourn staging it in-the-round. The diagram is the
fragile original plan by Helga Wood, overlaid by clarifying details on the layout. The top bed
would have been Nick and Jan‘s bedroom.
(© Helga Wood / Scarborough Theatre Trust)
The Round
Alan Ayckbourn finally directed Bedroom Farce in the round in 2000 at the Stephen Joseph
Theatre, Scarborough, successfully demonstrating the play can be realised very effectively in
a round / arena staging. (© Pip Leckenby / Scarborough Theatre Trust)
22
The Set And The Play
Having explored the design of the set, it is worth emphasising how Alan Ayckbourn then uses
the set within the play to achieve dramatic and comic effect. Michael Holt, a frequent designer
for Alan Ayckbourn, explains how simple lighting of the end-stage set can have quite complex
and dramatic results. Following that, the noted critic Michael Billington explains how he
believes the set facilitates both on-stage and off-stage drama.
―One sequence in Bedroom Farce (1975) demonstrates Ayckbourn‘s mastery of lighting
effects and his understanding of their possibilities. The stage picture is of three rooms set
side by side. We see the yuppie bedroom of Nick and Jan's flat and that of Malcolm and
Kate in their newly acquired brick terrace house, simultaneously with Ernest and Delia's
comfortable bedroom in their large Victorian pile. The domestic harmony in each one is
shattered by visits from the neurotic Susannah and the selfish Trevor, who bring their
post-divorce angst to disrupt their friends' sleeping hours.
As the action switches from room to room, the focus is drawn by lighting states, a
common enough device. But in one sequence, the lights are merely raised in each room
in turn in a sort of resume of the plot so far. Susannah has decided to stay overnight,
sharing Delia's bed, and Trevor has similarly disrupted the sleep of the other
households. We see middle-aged Delia having to suffer Susannah moaning neurotically in
her sleep. 'Oh Lord', Delia sighs as the light fades on her. It rises next on Kate in bed alone
under the bedclothes whilst her husband Malcolm, surprisingly, lies on the floor. He has
fallen asleep sandpapering the floorboards*. The light then cross-fades to Jan trapped
under her prostrate husband who cannot move having slipped a disc. He wails an
apology and she resigns herself to a sleepless night. A moment later we are drawn by the
lighting back to Delia and her moaning bed mate. It is a coup de theatre occasioned with a
minimum of dialogue by Ayckbourn‘s understanding of the comic pictures he has
contrived and the potential of elementary theatre technology. The lighting states replace
action to create the laughter. It is impossible to think of any other playwright who uses
modern technical facilities to such comic narrative effect.‖
(© Michael Holt, Alan Ayckbourn, pp.34-35)
―There are many other strands to this technically flawless play. One is Ayckbourn's knack,
even with only three bedrooms and four couples, of reminding us of the existence of
an off-stage world: you believe totally, for instance, in Malcolm and Kate's downstairs
party where the guests include Dick and Lottie (fresh from Absurd Person Singular) and
Gordon and Marge (direct from Absent Friends). Another is the easy rhythm of the crosscutting from bedroom to bedroom which gives the action an unusual flow and suggests
events may be developing in one room during our temporary absence. A third is
Ayckbourn's aesthetic taste in leaving things to our imagination: a lesser writer would
almost certainly show you Malcolm's reaction to the wanton ruination of his rigged-up
dressing-table whereas he permits us to envisage the apoplectic fury. What makes this
one of the best plays of the 1970s is partly that it leaves behind an ineradicable comic
image, which proves that three beds are better than one, and partly that what Ayckbourn
has to say about the blithe inconsiderateness of the suffering marries perfectly with his way
of saying it. By this stage, his technical mastery was its height.‖
(© Michael Billington, Alan Ayckbourn, pp.108)
* This is an error as Malcolm is actually sandpapering the dressing table
23
Period In Alan Ayckbourn‘s Plays
With a writing career spanning practically 50 years, the period of Alan Ayckbourn‘s plays is
becoming increasingly important when mounting productions of his work. Many of Alan‘s best
known plays are now several decades old: The Norman Conquests was written in 1973;
Absurd Person Singular in 1972 and Bedroom Farce in 1975. Whilst it would be wrong to
suggest the plays cannot be staged in a modern setting, it does pose problems with certain
plays and runs the risk of reducing the richness of the material.
While much of the timelessness of Alan Ayckbourn‘s plays is due to their concentration on
relationships between men and women - something which is pertinent to any period - often
the plays gain from an understanding of when they were written. How The Other Half Loves
and Relatively Speaking are certainly products of their time; Absurd Person Singular loses
some of its sting when not put in the context of the early ‗70s and the inexorable rise of the
British middle-class as a domineering force in British life and business. Likewise, it is hard to
imagine A Small Family Business having the same impact if it is taken out of the ‗80s milieu
where it offers a scathing reflection of Thatcher‘s Britain.
There can also be practical problems; which apply to Bedroom Farce. The play itself is
relatively timeless, but it spins on the lack of communication between the couples and the
need to visit each home separately. In an age where mobile phones are practically an
extension of our bodies, it strains credibility that in a modern production, none of the
characters either had or have access to a phone - particularly the bed-bound Nick. It may
appear to be a small problem, easily resolved, but even Alan Ayckbourn believes it can affect
the play.
―We revived it here [the Stephen Joseph Theatre] a few years ago and I did set it in the ‗70s.
Mainly because of the mobile phone issue. Yes, Trevor might be nonplussed if faced with one
though I have a nasty feeling he would take great delight in texting all and sundry. The real
problem for me was Nick. He would certainly have had a mobile. OK, I could have written in
lines about him losing it in the bed etc. etc. but that struck me as a bit tedious.
The other point is that neither Jan nor Kate work. Not that important but an extra reason for
leaving the play in the decade it was written.‖
The latter point is also well worth considering as social morays change. Socially, Britain is in
no way the same as it was in the mid-‘70s, when it was only starting to become the norm for
women to enter full-time work. A period setting helps make the characters all the more
credible - a similar situation can be found in Relatively Speaking with regard to the difference
between Ginny and Sheila; Sheila is of a world where women of her situation did not have to
work; Ginny represents the new woman who wants to be part of and succeed in the
workplace. A point emphasised by Alan.
―Bedroom Farce has to be set in the 70's. It must be before mobile phones were invented;
none of the women have jobs; Susannah is very much a child of the 70's and the older couple
probably wouldn't behave in quite the same way today - dinner jackets etc.‖
Of course, period settings pose other problems as frequent Ayckbourn designer Michael Holt
has pointed out: ―Part of the problem, if you‘re not careful, you end up in funny ‗60s or ‗70s
clothes. People end up in the bizarre end of the 70s.‖ A good solution to this is to present the
play in the correct period, but with what Holt refers to a non-period period clothing. On one
level, every-day fashion does not change much from decade to decade, a suit is still a suit, an
A-line skirt still an A-line skirt; it does not take much to evoke a period without caricaturing
it, as Holt emphasises: ―You have to find a non-period because otherwise you‘re setting up
expectations of social comment and Alan‘s plays are not this, they‘re character driven. What
he‘s writing about is character and they are not defined by their clothes. If you‘re not careful
you define who they are by the quirky period stuff. The clothes start to dictate who they are
instead of the characters dictating how they should appear.‖
When staging plays like Bedroom Farce, period is always an important consideration, but care
should be taken to make sure that while the play is recognisably in the correct period, the
details do not overwhelm the play or draw notice to themselves.
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Acting Ayckbourn
There is a particular skill when acting in or directing an Ayckbourn play; contrary to some
opinion, Ayckbourn‘s plays are neither easy to do nor obviously humorous. Reading an
Ayckbourn script will yield very few obviously funny or witty lines. The humour of the piece
comes from the context and situation of the dialogue and actors playing the piece truthfully.
To do otherwise is to both ruin the play and to lose the laughter. Although Alan has not
written specifically about the acting challenges in Relatively Speaking, this piece from 1978
looks at several early plays and offers advice useful for performing any Ayckbourn play from
Relatively Speaking to If I Were You.
Going back to my great idol, Buster Keaton - everything followed logically; he behaved
completely within his own mad world as a normal human being would behave. The mistake
that's made is that people imagine that somehow farce has to be played louder, faster,
broader - and suddenly they throw all credibility away. I have a campaign at the moment for
slow, quiet farce. I don't see why farce has necessarily to be loud or fast. It has to be paced
well, but that does not necessarily mean all loud or all fast.
The middle act of Absurd Person Singular is sometimes a trap, but one should bear in mind
that all the characters are in their own terms acting totally logically. Leave it to us, the
audience, to laugh, if we see the funny side; and leave it to the dramatist, if he's done his job
properly, to point the absurdity. The actors don't need to react; they can continue to play
their own role within that scene . . . there's still a woman trying to kill herself, which she is
still quite serious about, and there's still a man trying to unblock a sink. What turns an
audience off, I think, is when actors are in effect saying "Aren't I funny?"
Farce playing is not as mysterious as it's sometimes made out to be. It's difficult, but there's
a sort of mystique about farce, which makes everyone very nervous about it. Some of the
best performances I've had in farce and comedy are from actors who've never played it
before.
I had a girl who came into the company to play Evelyn in Absent Friends; on the first night
she delivered the lines as she had been doing in rehearsals and the audience just fell about.
So I popped round in the interval because I thought she'd be really thrilled about this as it
was her first job with us, and she said, "I can't stop them laughing. I'm sorry." I said, "Don't
worry - that's just what we want." "Is it?" she replied. She had no idea. Maybe I hadn't
explained it, but I had been talking about it as a character - I hadn't thought to talk about the
laughter. Three nights into the run I went to see it again - and she was practically standing
on her head to let laughs. I said, "You don't need to do any more - you've already got the
laughs."
This was the most clear example of how to play comedy - be real; and she had instinctive
timing on how to play the lines for real. There was someone with very little experience
playing comedy beautifully, and taking it a little further, why not farce the same way?
A lot of my plays start quite low key, and I slowly "jack them up"' into quite high-key stuff.
The Normans has a sort of climax in the middle, where it becomes quite broad - though it
should still be played as comedy, not farce. Of course one can have big moments, but you
must have explored the truth in order to reach them. What often happens with an actor who
is not naturally an expert farceur is that he has seen somebody playing farce and then tries to
copy the externals. He forgets that the great farce players have a sort of inner logic and truth
about them that makes them, for the time you are watching, totally believable. So many
actors go wrong in trying to play farce because of certain "distractions". For example, Ralph
Lynn had very large hands and a very comic personality, and he did things truthfully from his
own viewpoint, but which any other actor copying would be phoney. But he uses his own
particular physical peculiarities to create laughter. People following him think he got laughs by
doing "funny things" - but in fact he got laughs by doing things his way.
Alan Ayckbourn © 1978
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Part IV: Final Thoughts
Alan Ayckbourn‘s Thoughts On Bedroom Farce
Introduction To Three Plays (1976)
This play has, I think, elements of both Absurd Person Singular and Absent Friends in it. It
has its moments of near farce and yet still contains elements of the claustrophobic - maybe
because it's all in bedrooms. It is also the first time I've made use, to quite such an extent, of
the cross-cut device. Jumping the action from bedroom to bedroom gives the play an added
rhythm over and above what the dialogue normally provides. Again, I've allowed the
characters to progress, develop and resolve very much in their own way. Perhaps, as in my
other plays, none of them finds instant happiness or sudden great self-insight. But at least
they retain the dignity of resolving their own destinies.
Programme Note By Alan Ayckbourn
Bedroom Farce was written, like all my plays, for Scarborough's Theatre in the Round. We
were based then (1975) in the Library Theatre and the auditorium was even smaller than the
one we have now. On this particular occasion, though, I'd also promised Sir Peter Hall that I'd
try and write something for the newly-opened Lyttelton Theatre at the Royal National
Theatre. I'd walked around the shell of the unfinished auditorium a year or so earlier and it
seemed enormous. Somehow I needed to come up with a play that would fit both theatres. I
decided to use three small areas that would suit the Scarborough theatre but that could, if
needs be, expand to fill the larger stage area later.
Someone remarked that after Absurd Person Singular (three kitchens) and The Norman
Conquests (living room, dining room, and garden) there were very few rooms in the house
left to visit. This play marks my Bedroom Period. Later I went on to the Garage Period (Just
Between Ourselves), the Hall Period (Season’s Greetings) and the Garden Shed Period
(Intimate Exchanges)
Bedroom Farce is dedicated to anyone, anywhere, who has failed to get a decent night's sleep
and, more especially, to all those who are unfortunate enough to have a Trevor or Susannah
in their lives.
Miscellaneous Quotes By Alan Ayckbourn
There are other times when I‘m actually committed to an idea, as with Bedroom Farce. I was
committed to writing a play about bedrooms, though I didn‘t actually know what to write
about bedrooms until I started.
I solved the problem of filling the vast (or so it seemed to me at the time) area of the
Lyttleton stage by writing a piece with three rooms side by side. Though when I came to
rehearse it in Scarborough we discovered that we couldn‘t get the set on the stage at all. We
had to do it three-sided and lose a quarter of our audience seating.
I certainly have met – and I think everyone has met – Trevor, and there‘s a little bit of him in
me, but there‘s also a little bit of Malcolm… not so much I think, but there‘s something… I feel
that I might well grow into Ernest. I mean, there are occasions when I‘m at my most elderly,
tired, when I sometimes feel a great affinity with Ernest, though I‘m glad my relationship
hasn‘t quite deteriorated to the extent that sardines on toast, in bed, is the high spot in one‘s
life!
[When asked for a quote on the television adaptation] Originally Bedroom Farce was lightheartedly subtitled: ―a study of the British in bed‖. I‘m delighted that it‘s now possible for the
British to study this study of the British in bed – in bed.
(All quotes © Alan Ayckbourn)
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Bedroom Farce: The Aftermath
Bedroom Farce has always been a difficult play to place in the broader context of Alan
Ayckbourn‘s career and has frequently been dismissed as a result. Certainly it does not sit
easily with the plays around it, but to dismiss it would be to do the play a disservice.
Bedroom Farce is a light and entertaining comedy written at a time when Alan‘s plays were
generally moving into darker territory. It is preceded by Absent Friends and followed by Just
Between Ourselves, Ten Times Table and Joking Apart. They are strange bed-fellows as these
plays epitomise one of the darker periods of Alan‘s writing career. Yet beneath the laughs,
Bedroom Farce is not so far removed from these other plays and Alan Ayckbourn‘s most
common themes. Practically all the relationships are in ill-health and the intrusion of Trevor
and Susannah into them all but pushes them to breaking point. In Trevor, we have one of
Alan‘s hugely destructive men laying waste to the people and relationships around him with
not a care for anyone other than himself. He is an extreme example of Leonard from Time
And Time Again, Norman in The Norman Conquests and Dennis in Just Between Ourselves;
except these other characters tend to have at least a couple of redeeming qualities! In
Susannah, we also have an archetypal Ayckbourn female pushed to the limit and on the verge
of breakdown. She is not so far removed from Diana in Absent Friends, Sarah in The Norman
Conquests, Vera in Just between Ourselves and any number of other Ayckbourn women
pushed to the edge. Susannah is more broadly comic but one cannot imagine her life - or the
lives of those she interacts with - will ever be easy. There is a lighter touch in Bedroom Farce
and it is more obviously comic, but its theme and subject sit comfortably within Alan‘s writing
of this period. This argument and the depth of the play is succinctly summarised by the critic
Michael Billington in his book on Alan Ayckbourn: ―For what is the play actually about?
What Schopenhauer called `the tyranny of the weak', the capacity of a neurotic
married couple not only to export their problems but also to exacerbate the crises in
other people's marriages. It also deals with parental destructiveness, marital violence,
failures of communication, male vanity. Where a lesser dramatist might set up these
themes and then find an action that illustrated them, Ayckbourn sets up a brilliantly
comic device, lets his imagination take over and allows the ideas to spring out of exact
observation of human behavior. He reminds us all the time that a play is an artifact, a
toy, a construct; but that, at its best, it can also illuminate the human condition.
Bedroom Farce is also one of those rare plays in which form and content achieve a
blissfully happy marriage (about the only one on view).‖
The success of Bedroom Farce was enormous both critically and commercially. It is arguably
the last of Alan Ayckbourn‘s indisputable London successes until 1984 when A Chorus Of
Disapproval began another period of notable London success. Which is not to say Alan is not
successful in the years between this period, but as his plays took a darker turn so the London
productions were less commercially successful; they were still popular but in the eyes of the
producers not to the same level as Alan‘s plays from the preceding decade.
Bedroom Farce is also notable as forging Alan‘s strong relationship with Peter Hall and the
National Theatre. There may well have been arguments about whether Bedroom Farce should
have been produced at the National, but at a time when the National Theatre‘s back was
against the wall, it provided a very welcome hit and there is no doubt the financial success of
the play would have subsidised other less popular but no less worthy productions of the
period. The success of Bedroom Farce would lead to a run of plays at the National Theatre
during Hall‘s tenure which included Sisterly Feelings (1980), Way Upstream (1981), A Chorus
Of Disapproval (1984) culminating in A Small Family Business (1987) when Alan was running
his own company at the National Theatre.
Most significantly, it kick-started Alan‘s London directing career. At this time, Alan‘s regular
West End producer Michael Codron was not willing to let Alan take on the direction of the
London productions. Peter Hall‘s confidence in Alan‘s abilities and the subsequent success of
Bedroom Farce set a precedent and arguably opened the door for Codron to allow Alan to
direct the London premieres. The result was, with the exception of Taking Steps in 1979 and
Family Circles in 1978, Alan has directed the London premiere of all his plays since. It‘s hard
not to imagine that Peter Hall‘s subsequent decision to ask Alan to run his own company at
the National in the ‗80s was not tied to the fact that Alan, by that point, had a successful
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directing career in London as well as Scarborough.
Michael Billington‘s earlier point about Alan‘s technical mastery of the stage is also worth
considering. There is a distinct feeling that after the tour-de-force of The Norman Conquests,
Alan began to draw in his work. In the immediate aftermath of the trilogy, there is less of a
bravura feel to the staging, the plays concentrate on the characters and are frequently based
in one set with none of the technical ‘gimmicks‘ which Alan had become associated with.
Absent Friends, Confusions, Just Between Ourselves, Ten Times Table and Joking Apart are all
ensemble character pieces. In the midst of this comes Bedroom Farce, commissioned for a
space unfamiliar to Alan. What he creates is a play that both shows how well he can cope
with the vast spaces of the National Theatre, but also a play which illustrates his consummate
skill as a director and his ability to offer something new to audiences. Bedroom Farce reminds
us of Alan‘s skill as a director and technician as well as playwright and demonstrates how he
is comfortable moving from the, for want of a better description, chamber pieces to the more
technically challenging and frequently larger scale plays.
Of course, one of the most important achievements of Bedroom Farce is its extraordinary
success. Not only did it break records at the National Theatre, but it quickly became one of
the most popular and frequently performed of Alan Ayckbourn‘s plays. Its popularity remains
undiminished more than 30 years after it was created. Since 2000, the play has been revived
by Alan Ayckbourn at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, been revived in the West End with Richard
Briers and June Whitfield among the cast and on the 30th anniversary of its London premiere,
a major touring production directed by Robin Herford took place. All this in addition to the
many other professional and amateur productions of the play which take place on
international stages every year.
Simon Murgatroyd © 2007
Images from Alan Ayckbourn’s 2000 revival of Bedroom Farce at the Stephen Joseph Theatre
(© Tony Bartholomew 2000)
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Part V: Further Reading
If you are interested in finding out more about Bedroom Farce, the following books and articles may be of interest.
* indicates no longer in print
Playtexts
Bedroom Farce
(Samuel French, 1978) ISBN 0573110476
Books
Paul Allen: A Pocket Guide to Alan Ayckbourn’s Plays
pp.43-46 (Faber & Faber, 2004, ISBN 0571214924)
Paul Allen: Alan Ayckbourn - Grinning at the Edge
pp.154-55 (Methuen, 2001, ISBN 0413731200)
Michael Billington: Alan Ayckbourn (2nd Ed)*
pp.100-108 (Palgrave, 1990, ISBN 0333498976)
Bernard F Dukore: Alan Ayckbourn
pp.144-146 (Garland Press, 1991, ISBN 0824057597)
Albert-Reiner Glaap: Ayckbourn Country (1st Ed)*
pp.61-63 (Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 1999, ISBN 3884763490)
Peter Hall: Diaries
pp.174-5, 285-6, 409-10, 432-33 (Oberon Books, 2000, ISBN 978-1840021028)
Michael Holt: Alan Ayckbourn
pp.34-35 (Northcote Press, 1999, ISBN 0746308590)
Albert E. Kalson: Laughter In The Dark*
pp.115-188 (Associated Universities Press, 1991, ISBN 0838634796)
Simon Murgatroyd: Sight Unseen
pp.31-32 (Lulu.com, 2009)
Malcolm Page: File On Ayckbourn*
pp.39-42 (Methuen, 1989, ISBN 0413420108)
Ian Watson: Conversations With Ayckbourn*
pp.73-74, 89, 159-161 (Faber and Faber, 1988, ISBN 0571151922)
Sidney Howard White: Alan Ayckbourn*
pp.80-88 (Twayne Publishers, 1984, ISBN 080576870X)
Articles
Ian Jack: Unlocal Lad Makes Good
Sunday Times, 30 June 1974
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Shiva Naipul: Scarborough - Where To Succeed In Showbusiness
Radio Times 23 August 1975
Brian Connell: Playing For Laughs To A Lady Typist
The Times, 5 January 1976
Fred Hauptfuhrer: His Sexual Comedies Travel So Well that Alan Ayckbourn Is The
New Bard Of Avon Ladies
People Weekly, 12 January 1976
Shirley Green: Going Out
Over 21, 1 May 1976
England’s Triumphant Playwright
San Francisco Chronicle, 12 February 1977
John Heilpern: Striking Sparks Off Suburbia
The Observer, 13 February 1977
Jaques Le Sourd: England’s Comic Master
Standard Star, 15 April 1979
Ben Travers: A Study Of The British In Bed
TV Times, September 1980
Gerald Raymond: Going To Scarborough Fair With Alan Ayckbourn
Theater Week, 12 September 1988
Charles Spencer: Alan Ayckbourn At Fifty
Daily Telegraph, 15 April 1989
Programmes
John Heilpern: Alan Ayckbourn
Bedroom Farce programme, 1977, National Theatre
Peter Cheeseman: Tale Of Two Theatres
Bedroom Farce programme, 1980, Victoria Theatre
Alan Ayckbourn: Bedroom Farce, How It Began...
Bedroom Farce programme, 2000, Stephen Joseph Theatre
Other Media
Alan Ayckbourn’s Official Website: www.alanayckbourn.net
The website has a section dedicated to Bedroom Farce and various programme notes for the
play written by Alan Ayckbourn
An annotated and expanded version of Bedroom Farce: An In Depth History article can be obtained by contacting The Bob Watson Archive by emailing: [email protected]
Bedroom Farce
Granada Television, 1980
This television adaptation of the National Theatre production is unavailable on video or DVD
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