Bedroom Farce: Articles by Other Authors

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.

The Peter Hall Diaries, published in 1983, offer a fascinating insight into Peter Hall's time as Artistic Director of the National Theatre. They include a number of references to Alan Ayckbourn's collaborations with the company, particularly with regard to Bedroom Farce and Way Upstream. This short extract offers an insight into how Bedroom Farce was created.

The Peter Hall Diaries: Bedroom Farce

Friday 11 July
To Alan Ayckbourn's theatre at Scarborough to see Bedroom Farce, well directed by Ayckbourn himself.

Supper with him afterwards. He told me that the play had been announced and publicised as the centre of the new Scarborough season even before it was written.

It 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.


Copyright: Peter Hall; reproduced from The Peter Hall Diaries published by Hamish Hamilton Ltd (1983). Please do not reproduce without permission of the copyright holder.