Bedroom Farce: Articles by Alan Ayckbourn

This section includes articles by Alan Ayckbourn on Bedroom Farce as well as other authors. All articles are copyright off the respective author and can be accessed through the links in the right-hand column.

This article by Alan Ayckbourn was written for an unrecorded revival of the play.

Bedroom Farce

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 moved to the following year at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round.

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.

Copyright: Haydonning Ltd. Please do not reproduce without permission of the copyright holder.