Posted on

Alan Ayckbourn plays with time and space, history and the present, in Family Album

Alan Ayckbourn directing rehearsals for Family Album, his 87th full-length play. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

NO sooner has the world premiere of Alan Ayckbourn’s 86th full-length play All Lies concluded at the tiny, moorland Esk Valley Theatre than his 87th opens at his regular home, Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre.

Family Album is one of five plays penned by Ayckbourn in lockdown, or is it six, as Esk Valley Theatre producer Sheila Carter suggested on press night?

“Oh lord, I’ve rather lost count, but there are two more waiting after All Lies and Family Album,” says Sir Alan, whose number of plays now outstrips his age of 83.

“Once lockdown occurred, I was like one of those ocean liners that chugged on with no brakes until running out of fuel, but there was all that frustration of no productions going on.”

What joy for Sir Alan when he could at last return to the rehearsal room in May last year for the SJT’s summer production of The Girl Next Door. “Doing that play gave me a huge charge of the batteries,” he says.

This year, already he has directed All Lies in its premiere at The Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness, in May and the Robinson Institute, Glaisdale, last month. Now he is pulling the strings on Family Album as writer, director and sound designer, directing Elizabeth Boag, Georgia Burnell, Tanya-Loretta Dee, Antony Eden and York-born Frances Marshall as he tenderly chronicles the trials, tribulations and temptations of three generations of one family across 70 years in the same home.

Presented, as ever, in The Round, Ayckbourn interweaves his account of a moving-in day in 1952, a birthday party in 1992 and a moving-out day in 2022, “when all the skeletons are suddenly jumping out of their cupboards”.

York actress Frances Marshall in an early rehearsal for the 1992 storyline in Family Album. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Join housewife Peggy (Burnell) and RAF veteran John (Eden) as they proudly move into the first home they can really call their own; daughter Sandra (Marshall), frantically negotiating the challenges of her ten-year-old daughter’s birthday party without her AWOL husband; and granddaughter Alison (Boag) and her partner Jess (Dee), finally escaping the house she has somewhat unwillingly inherited.

 “My inspiration was a programme on BBC4 called A House Through Time, a fascinating piece of social history [presented by historian David Olusoga]. I thought, I could do this on a smaller scale – I didn’t want to go back centuries, so I started within my lifetime, in the 1950s.

“We have three time periods layered on top of each other happening simultaneously in the same house, following a family from the grandparents in 1952, to the children in 1992 and then the grandchildren today.”

Ayckbourn is no stranger to playing with time, but not in this way before. “For me it’s new: I’ve used time so much – I’ve run it backwards and forwards, and I’ve run it sideways, and I’ve occasionally run it forwards and backwards simultaneously and at different speeds, but never in this way,” he says.

Parallels have been drawn with Ayckbourn’s 2018 premiere, A Brief History Of Women, a comedy in four parts, each set 20 years apart, focusing on an unremarkable man and the remarkable women who loved him, left him, or lost him over sixty years, and the equally remarkable old manor house that saw and heard it all happen.

“That play was the story of the house seen through the eyes of the people who ‘mucked about with it’, as it changed from a country house to a country-house hotel,” says Sir Alan. “This time, it’s the people, seen through the house. 

“I’ve realised with age, when you have a choice, you can either look back, and I can look back to the wartime 1940s, with my first conscious memory of an air raid shelter, right up to 2022, which is one choice, or you can look forward, the other choice.

Antony Eden rehearsing his role as RAF veteran John in Family Album. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

“It’s no coincidence that our most successful children’s writers, Morpurgo and Rowling, have looked at science fiction in order to reach a generation they’re not able to reach otherwise – and the best science fiction reflects what’s happening now.

“I can write plays for my near-contemporaries, but my plays for young people also give me the chance to make up my own rules, which can apply to both me and the children I’m writing for.”

Family Album reflects on the past and its impact on the next generation, especially on women. “One of the themes is the enormous journey women have been on. My God, they have moved a long way, and the most interesting thing for me to do was to write a play set in 1952, 1992 and 2022, that would be much more interesting if I interweaved all three.

“It’s my latest exploration of the theatre space offered by The Round, which goes back to How The Other Half Loves [written in 1969], with everyone in the play occupying one space.”

Ayckbourn says a “stinging contemporary play” is not in his armoury at present – the romantic All Lies, for example, was set in 1957-58 – and he does not foresee writing “directly” about our rotten age. Instead he will continue looking at changing times. 

“I do explore the changes in men in future plays,” he says. “I’m very curious to see quite where men will go. Many men have changed; for every dyed-in-the-wool chauvinist, there is a new man.”

Alan Ayckbourn’s Family Album runs at Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until October 1. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

Georgia Burnell, who plays housewife Peggy, rehearses a scene from the 1952 storyline in Family Album. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Posted on

REVIEW: Alan Ayckbourn’s All Lies, Esk Valley Theatre, Robinson Institute, Glaisdale, near Whitby, until August 27

Luke Dayhill’s Sebastian Goodfellow and Saskia Strallen’s Posy Capstick in All Lies. Picture: Steven Barber

ALAN Ayckbourn wrote five plays in the lockdown lull for live theatre, says Esk Valley Theatre director Mark Stratton. Or six, according to Sheila Carter, when CharlesHutchPress chatted with the producer pre-show.

Is it five? Or is it six? What’s the truth? Well, All Lies is definitely Scarborough knight Sir Alan’s 86th full-length play, soon to be followed by his 87th, Family Album, opening at the Stephen Joseph Theatre on September 2.

His 84th, Anno Domino, took the form of an audio play performed by Ayckbourn and his wife, Heather Stoney, in an online fundraiser for the SJT during the first 2020 lockdown, and later that year he played three principal roles in an online audio reinvention of Haunting Julia.

Why mention this? Because All Lies equally would have suited being presented as a radio play, given its somewhat static style of performance, where the focus falls on the to and fro of letters until the finale when the play’s young lovers are seen sitting together for the first time, albeit at opposite ends of a coffee-bar table.

For so long a supporter of Esk Valley Theatre’s small-scale but highly professional summer productions in a village hall on the North York Moors, writer-director Ayckbourn offered All Lies to Stratton and Carter to complement the initial May run at The Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness, with Stratton taking on the assistant director’s role for the EVT run.

In tight, Covid-shadowed financial times, it fitted the bill with its cast of three and shared costs, and not least the kudos of staging an Ayckbourn world premiere. As ever, EVT devotees have been turning up by the busload, on this occasion for an enjoyable triangular drama, but not one with Ayckbourn’s usual visual flair.

Alan Ayckbourn: Prolific play-writing in lockdown. Picture: Tony Bartholomew, May 2020

Roger Glossop’s set design amounts to three chairs, each facing the audience, two to the side at the front, the other central and raised, at the back. They look socially distanced, but that feeling may just be a hangover from Covid restrictions.

Here, the magical flourishes and application of the imagination must come from Luke Dayhill’s Sebastian Goodfellow and Saskia Strallen’s Posy Capstick, who both gild the lily when trying to present the best of themselves to each other. Or tell little white lies, if you you want to be brutally honest.

In Ayckbourn’s sparse presentation, they are not shown doing this directly to each other, but in letters that they read out as they write them: Posy to a friend; Sebastian to his frank, eventually exasperated family-outcast sister Sonia (Rhiannon Neads, occupier of the central third seat), who in turn shares her thoughts with sceptical, scathing gay lover Bobbie and then responds to Sebastian.

Letters, you say? Yes, the setting is 1957-1958, when people still took to pen and paper. It puts the emphasis on the verbal on stage, with Ayckbourn letting the audience enjoy being one step ahead of the two young lovers, later joined by the letters’ recipients being likewise.

Ayckbourn is writing in the age of fake news, Trumipian alternative truths, Johnsonian obfuscation, social-media misinformation, government disinformation. “The sad thing is there’s a lot of lying going on these days,” he says in his programme notes.

Ayckbourn has always been about truths, home truths, especially about the domestic lie of the land. Hence, rather than “the massive lies (allegedly) told every day by presidents and prime ministers”, he focuses on “those harmless, rather pathetic little everyday lies we tell, usually about ourselves, to improve our image”.

To and fro of letters: Luke Dayhill’s Sebastian Goodfellow, Saskia Strallen’s Posy Capstick, right, and Rhiannon Neads’s Sonia in All Lies. Picture: Steven Barber

Today, that “slight make-over” would involve photoshopping pictures on social media or falsehoods on (Love Me) Tinder. In 1957, the “unattainable handsome boy”, Sebastian Goodfellow, and “the unreachable beautiful girl”, Posy Capstick, do it brazenly face to face, although we see it only in reportage, in those letters, before the curtain falls on chair number three.

The effect is somewhat distancing, keeping the characters at one step removed until the wit, wisdom and warmth of Ayckbourn’s ever-astute writing permeates the rigid surface, as he weighs up the pros and cons of lies, whether they can ever be innocent or are destined to haunt you.

This is not one of his darker pieces, nor one of his more substantial works, but a sage one with a note of forgiveness and understanding, one with a smile on its face, a lightness of step, as lie trumps lie, after Posy’s Last Night of the Proms outing turns into a first night of a new romance with trouser salesman Sebastian, who claims to be a cellist with the Halle Orchestra and later a spy. He bluffs, she bluffs, and the lies become ever more elaborate, but ultimately these love birds are naughty but nice.

“The truth is out there somewhere,” says Ayckbourn, but is the truth in there too in All Lies?In this instance, love is more powerful than all the nervous, desperate-to-please fantasies the lovers spin. Does that ring true? You decide, but how lovely to see the old romantic at work in Sir Alan, helped enormously by his making jack-the-lad, reticent Sebastian and the more assured, clipped Posy such young charmers for Dayhill and Strallen to embellish with relish. Neads adds amusement aplenty with Sonia’s rising bemusement.

Black-and-white kitchen-sink dramas of the late-Fifties and early Sixties would tell a different truth, a darker one, not least through Billy Liar’s Billy Fisher. He was the schemer; Sebastian and Posy are a midsummer night’s dreamers.

Box office: 01947 897587 or eskvalleytheatre.co.uk.

Review by Charles Hutchinson

The plotting thickens: Saskia Strallen’s lady of letters in All Lies. Picture: Steven Barber
Posted on

How come an Alan Ayckbourn world premiere is being staged in a moorland village institute? The truth on All Lies

Will the truth hurt in Alan Ayckbourn’s All Lies when Luke Dayhill’s Sebastian and Saskia Strallen’s Posy fall in love? Picture: Steven Barber

ESK Valley Theatre is presenting the world premiere production of Alan Ayckbourn’s 86th full-length play in a North Yorkshire moorland village.

All Lies is running at the Robinson Institute, Glaisdale, six miles from Whitby, until August 27, directed by Ayckbourn himself. And yes, that is the truth.

“We were approached by Alan,” says a delighted Mark Stratton, Esk Valley Theatre’s artistic director, who is Ayckbourn’s assistant director for the three-hander, written in the quietude of the pandemic lockdowns.

“All Lies was already booked for two weeks at the Old Laundry Theatre, in Bowness-on-Windermere, in May, but the feeling was that was too short a run for an Ayckbourn premiere.

“Alan has been a big supporter of our work for years and has seen many of our plays, so he said, ‘would you like to take it?’. We thought, ‘well, why don’t we put it on in our regular August slot as the institute is busy for other parts of the year?’.

“The way we’ve done it, the actors signed contracts for Bowness and then contracts for us, with Alan holding two days of rehearsals in Scarborough to help to prepare for the re-start in Glaisdale.”

Initial rehearsals had been conducted at Alan’s Scarborough studio for two weeks from April 19, “before the whole shebang moved over to Bowness” for its debut. “We’re billing our run as the ‘world premiere production’ because it’s the same production,” says Mark.

“Alan’s involvement has been right the way through until he handed over to me in order to start rehearsals for his next play at the Stephen Joseph Theatre [Scarborough], Family Album.

“My role has been minimal, as ‘caretaker’ director, while keeping the production’s Ayckbourn integrity. We’ve been wanting Esk Valley Theatre to be involved as a producer on an Ayckbourn play, without treading on the SJT’s toes, and this has been our opportunity.”

All Lies is set in 1957-1958, when a chance meeting elicits love at first sight! The person of your dreams! But will they feel the same? Once you tell the truth about yourself, will you even be worthy of them? Do you take the plunge and reveal all? Or choose the dangerous alternative and tell them…All Lies?!

Luke Dayhill as Sebastian Goodfellow, Rhiannon Neads as sister Sonia Goodfellow, back, and Saskia Strallen as Posy Capstick in All Lies. Picture: Steven Barber

Questions, questions, so many Ayckbourn questions, in a play of subtle wit and shifting sands where the truth is in there somewhere when a young couple falls in love but the little lies develop into something much bigger.

Can Mark reveal a little more? “Well, the clues are in the title! It’s one of those plays where one thing leads to another, so you don’t want to give too much away, but yes, lies are told, and where do lies lead when you spin a web of deceit?!” he says.

“It’s very much a play about two people wanting to show their best side to each other when they first meet, but what happens when someone exaggerates who they are? What happens down the line?

“It becomes that catalogue of things that happen when lies are told, but it’s also about the fragility of egos and how we want to be seen in the best light when we don’t have the confidence just to be ourselves.”

What is the significance of the Fifties’ setting? “It was the age of letter writing, pre-mobile technology, when people wrote letters to express themselves deeply in a way they don’t show themselves so emotionally now,” says Mark.

“Alan is so good at picking at things, exposing them, and while it’s set in 1957, it reflects on how we’ve changed as a society.”

All Lies is not in Ayckbourn’s darkest vein by any means, suggests Mark. “There are just a few dark undertones. It’s a light and frothy piece in many ways,” he says. “It’s more…it’s not Noel Coward but it has a lovely light comedy quality about it with beautiful wordplay.”

At 83, Ayckbourn is as prolific as ever, so much so that he has a backlog of new work accruing from theatres going into hibernation in lockdown. “Alan’s brain is so brilliant,” says Mark. “You can’t but marvel at him. Most writers would be happy with five plays in a lifetime, but Alan has written five in a matter of months!”

Esk Valley Theatre presents Alan Ayckbourn’s All Lies at Robinson Institute, Glaisdale, near Whitby, until August 27 with a cast of Luke Dayhill, Rhiannon Neads and Saskia Strallen. Box office: 01947 897587.

Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, presents Alan Ayckbourn’s Family Album from September 2 to October 1. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com.

Say cello, wave goodbye? Will love crumble when the truth is out for Sebastian and Posy in Alan Ayckbourn’s All Lies at Esk Valley Theatre?

Copyright of The Press, York

Posted on

More Things To Do in and around York on walls, in parks, by water, on stage and in future. List No. 94, courtesy of The Press

The Cure’s Robert Smith backstage, by Alison O’Neill, from her debut exhibition of 1980s’ music photos at City Screen, York. Copyright: Alison O’Neill

FROM The Cure’s Eighties’ photos to Ayckbourn’s lies, folk, riverside and walls festivals to folk’s future, Charles Hutchinson picks his highlights of the week ahead and beyond.

Exhibition launch of the week: Trapped In The Light, 1980s Music Photos by Alison O’Neill, Sky Lounge, City Screen Picturehouse, York, Sunday to September 10

ALISON O’Neill loved photographing The Cure, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Jesus & Mary Chain and The Cramps in the 1980s, but those black-and-white concert and backstage images have been in hibernation for more than three decades, never exhibited until now.

Why? “Shyness,” she says, but with the encouragement of a photographer friend in Berlin, she is letting those nocturnal photographic encounters see the light of day at last at City Screen.

Play of the week: Alan Ayckbourn’s All Lies, Esk Valley Theatre, Robinson Institute, Glaisdale, near Whitby, until August 27

When the little white lies start: Luke Dayhill and Saskia Strallen as the young couple in Alan Ayckbourn’s All Lies at Esk Valley Theatre. Picture: Steven Barber

FOLLOWING its initial run at the Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness-on-Windermere, in May, Esk Valley Theatre presents the world premiere production of writer-director Alan Ayckbourn’s 86th full-length play.

The setting is 1957/1958, when a  when a chance meeting elicits love at first sight! The person of your dreams! But will they feel the same? Once you tell the truth about yourself, will you even be worthy of them? Do you take the plunge and reveal all? Or choose the dangerous alternative and tell them…All Lies?!

Questions, questions, so many Ayckbourn questions, in a play where it may be all lies but the truth is in there somewhere. Box office: 01947 897587.

Inside a tipi at the Boatyard York Festival

New festival of the week: The Boatyard York Summer Festival, Ferry Lane, Bishopthorpe, York, today, 11am to 7pm

THE Boatyard plays host to its first summer riverside festival this weekend, featuring live music from York bands and musicians, such as Up In Smoke, and an array of street food to suit meat eaters and vegetarians alike.

Organised by Eva Brindley, this family-orientated day promises a Punch & Judy show, face-painting, fare stalls and games, ping pong and volleyball, plus canoe, kayak and day boat hire. Look out for the Bosun’s Oven café, wood-fired pizzas and summery drinks from the horsebox bar. Dogs are welcome; entry is free.

Lewis Capaldi: First visit to Scarborough Open Air Theatre since 2019

Outdoor gig of the week; Lewis Capaldi, supported by Wild Youth and Aine Deane, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, Thursday, gates 6pm. CANCELLED

UPDATE: 10/8/2022

LEWIS Capaldi has pulled out of his August 11 gig at Scarborough Open Air Theatre. The reason? Illness.

Ticket holders will be reimbursed fully.

SCOTTISH singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi spent ten weeks at the top of the charts with his May 2019 debut album, Divinely Inspired To A Hellish Extent. Alas, the wait goes on for the follow-up, and all the while you will find such questions as “Is Lewis Capaldi quitting?” and “What has happened to Lewis Capaldi” on the internet.

In July, the 25-year-old Glaswegian told his Latitude festival audience “I have no new music to play you”, calling himself “horribly lazy” when faced with “needing to finish my new album”. Looks like you will have to make do with Before You Go, Grace, Hollywood, Bruises et al once more on Thursday; the heartbeat of his first visit to Scarborough OAT in 2019 . Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.

Much ado about Nothing & Everything Else…and Z Is For Zelda at Theatre@41

Double bill of the week: Black Sheep Theatre in Nothing & Everything Else/Z Is For Zelda, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, August 10 to 13, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee

SHOWCASING the work of playwright and director Bethany Shilling, the first play is an offbeat comedy about a young woman performing at her very first stand-up comedy open-mic night where she uses the time to check in with herself mentally. 

The second is an attempt by Zelda Fitzgerald to share her life story. In doing so, she flits between her polished, performed self and the obscure ramblings that consume her mind. Is she mad or is this the final act of Zelda’s undeniable character? Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

Seth Lakeman: Next Saturday’s main-stage headliner at The Magpies Festival. Picture: Tom Griffiths

Folk festival of the week: The Magpies Festival, Sutton Park, Sutton-on-the-Forest, near York, August 12, music from 6pm; August 13, music from 12.30pm

THE Magpies Festival has expanded from one day at last summer’s inaugural event to two in 2022, hosted again by The Magpies’ transatlantic folk trio of Bella Gaffney, Kate Griffin and Holly Brandon, ahead of this autumn’s release of their new album, Undertow.

Next Friday’s line-up will be: Jaywalkers; Elanor Moss; John Smith; Chris Elliott & Caitlin Jones and headliners Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra. Next Saturday presents Honey & The Bear; Dan Webster Band; Katie Spencer; The People Versus; David Ward Maclean; The Jellyman’s Daughter; Rory Butler; The Magpies plus guests; The 309s; The Drystones and main-stage headliner Seth Lakeman. Look out too for the food market and craft fair. Box office: themagpiesfestival.co.uk/tickets

The poster for York Walls Festival 2022

Heritage event of the week: York Walls Festival 2022 Summer Weekend, August 13 and 14

THE Friends of York Walls will be partnering with York organisations and community groups to tell stories and promote “our shared community, history and heritage” next weekend.

The Friends look after the 500-year-old Fishergate Postern Tower on behalf of City of York Council and it is sure to feature in the festival, along with the Bar walls and Red Tower. For festival updates, head to: yorkwallsfestival.org.

Joshua Burnell & Band: Autumn tour takes in The Crescent in his home city of York. Picture: Elly Lucas

The future of folk: Joshua Burnell & Band, The Crescent, York, October 16, 8pm

JOSHUA Burnell & Band will play a home-city gig at The Crescent on his nine-date folk-fused baroque’n’roll autumn tour.

Multi-instrumentalist singer Burnell will be joined by globe-trotting violinist Frances Archer, guitarist Nathan Greaves, multi-instrumentalist Oliver Whitehouse, drummer Ed Simpson and vocalist Frances Sladen. “Think The War On Drugs meets Seth Lakeman on Ziggy Stardust’s spaceship,” he suggests. Tickets: joshuaburnell.co.uk/tour or ticketweb.co.uk.