With an Introduction by the author.'The prolific master of suburban mayhem has still got his mojo.'Evening StandardTime of My Life'One of Mr. Ayckbourn's most virtuosic experiments in postmodern narrative.'Wall Street JournalNeighbourhood Watch'Ayckbourn's tartly topical, pitch-black comedy, a startling evocation of the panic induced by nightmarish notions of "broken Britain"... An arresting, nastily co...

'What is remarkable about Alan Ayckbourn's comedy is that it contrives to be simultaneously hilarious and harrowing. Literally, it is agonisingly funny'Daily TelegraphIn Three Plays Ayckbourn's perfectly pitched dialogue slices into the soul of suburbia. The settings are simple - a kitchen, a bedroom, a party - but the relationships between the husbands and wives are more complicated. Fraught relationships are exposed with humour, bathos and a sharp understanding o...

The first volume of Alan Ayckbourn's collected work contains his morality plays from the 1980s. It includes the plays A Chorus of Disapproval, A Small Family Business, Henceforward . . ., and Man of the Moment.

The central character of Alan Ayckbourn's new play is Susan, a parson's wife, 'one of the most moving and devastating that he has created...'Robin Thornber reviewing the first production in Scarborough in the Guardian.

Snake in the GrassA terrific piece - brilliant, bizarre and yet totally believable . . . In fact, it's more than classic; it's close to the top of its class. Yorkshire PostIf I Were YouA blissfully funny comedy that's also filled with sadness, a devilishly simple theatrical idea that spins out all kinds of complex truths about human nature. Daily TelegraphLife and BethA wise, humane, ...

Alan Ayckbourn's play is about a very ordinary teenager called Lucy. With her father glued to the cowboys on the telly, her mother preoccupied with neighbourly gossip and her brother enclosed in his ear-phones, no one wants to know about her place in the school swimming team. So Lucy revives her childhood fantasy friend, Zara, setting a place for her at the very ordinary tea table. This time Zara materializes, bringing with her an idealized father and brother, and showing Lucy how to make ...

This third volume of Alan Ayckbourn plays includes Haunting Julia, Sugar Daddies, Drowning on Dry Land and Private Fears in Public Places, with an introduction by the author.Haunting Julia'A play for today. It touches on the failures of education and parenting, on media pressure and overdoses. Kurt Cobain comes to mind. More universally, Haunting Julia mourns how in adolescence and adulthood, we do our loves wrong.' Financial Times

A treat to read and a joy to perform, this second collection of Alan Ayckbourn's work is a cornucopia of some of his wonderfully inventive children's plays. From the story of the teenage Lucy in Invisible Friends who revives her childhood imaginary friend when things get difficult at home, onto the storytellers in My Very Own Story and This Is Where We Came In and, finally, to young Ernie who 'illucinates' all sorts of wild and weird happenings with astonishing ...

The Revengers' ComediesA hugely entertaining pitch that recalls the old movies to which it frequently pays homage - Strangers on a Train, Rebecca, Kind Hearts and Coronets - and expands after intermission to reveal an immensely disturbing vision of contemporary middle-class England poisoned by the rise of economic ruthlessness and the collapse of ethics. New York TimesThings We Do for LoveLloyds...

This is a trilogy of plays by the most performed playwright in the world, all set in a flat in Docklands. Lynette's teenage daughter comes up with a surprising way to save the family finances. A night of passion takes a mysterious and dangerous turn. An important family occasion is thrown into chaos by the arrival of some uninvited guests.

With over sixty plays written and premièred at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough before going on to play in the West End or the Royal National Theatre, London, or Broadway, Alan Ayckbourn's expertise in writing and directing plays is unsurpassed.For the first time, here in The Crafty Art of Playmaking, he shares all his tricks of the trade. From helpful hints on writing (Where do you start? How do you continue? What is comedy and how do you write it? What i...

Confusions, a series of plays for four-to-five actors, typifies Alan Ayckbourn's particular brand of black comedy on human behaviour. The plays are alternately naturalistic, stylised and farcical, but underlying each is the echoing problem of profound loneliness.From a devoted and isolated mother, to her unfaithful travelling salesman husband, through a solicitous waiter to well-heeled diners and an utterly shambolic garden fete, human frailty is laid bare as one hilarious...