A student edition of five one-act plays by Britain's most popular playwright.
Ayckbourn's series of plays for 4-5 actors typify his black comedies of human behaviour. First produced in 1976, the plays are alternately naturalistic, stylised and farcical, but underlying each is the problem of loneliness. The Mother Figure shows a mother unable to escape from baby talk; in The Drinking Companion an absentee husband attempts seduction without success; in Between Mouthfuls, a waiter oversees a fraught dinner encounter. A garden party gets out of hand in Gosforth's Fete whilst A Talk in the Park is a revue style curtain call piece for the five actors.
Whether the comedies concern marital conflict, infidelity or motherhood and take place on a park bench or at a village fete, the characters are familiar and their cries for help instantly recognisable.
"Principally he is respected as a radical re-inventor of form" Dominic Dromgoole

Alan Ayckbourn was born in 1939 and has over seventy plays and productions to his name. He worked all over the world but has focused on the West End where he has also run his own theatre company. Major successes include, Absurd Person Singular (1975), a black comedy often considered his most perfect work. It was first performed in 1972 at the Stephen Joseph theatre, Scarborough, where Ayckbourn was artistic director between 1972 and 2009. Other plays include: Bedroom Farce (1975), the title of a two-act comedy, first performed in 1977 at the National Theatre; Just Between Ourselves (1976); Way Upstream (1982); A Chorus of Disapproval (1984); Woman in Mind (1985); A Small Family Business (1987); Man Of The Moment (1988); House & Garden (1999); and Private Fears in Public Places (2004). He has won many awards including seven Evening Standard awards as well as a Tony in 2009 for best revival for The Norman Conquests.