Sir Alan Ayckbourn - British Playwright HARDtalk


Sir Alan Ayckbourn - British Playwright

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disfigured years ago in a gun incident. Now it is time for

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HARDtalk. My guest on HARDtalk is often

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diskette TAS described as the most performed living playwright in the

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world. A revival of the play 'Absent Friends'. After more than

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50 years of writing and directing what is it about Alan Ayckbourn and

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his betrayal about relationships that can still filled theatres

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Welcome to HARDtalk. Another play, another opening night and I imagine

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that when you have had has many new productions as you have, but to

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become quite relaxed about it. Have you? Know. Never. Writing a new

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play is always a challenge. I have a huge backlog of work. He been

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just going to one, particularly one like 'Absent Friends' where I am

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not at the helm. I have traditionally always directed my

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own work. In this case I have stepped aside he leads a wonderful

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young director do it for me. Of course to get nervous for everybody

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else. There is something so imprisoned making about seeing a

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production with that your hand on it. The process of reading the

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reviews. Is that still difficult? It needn't be. But you still go

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rushed to see the papers? No. I remember the very first play of

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mine which opened in the West. The first review that came out, I

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remember it, it was written by a man who is now no longer critique

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you. He wrote the solitary worse review of a play of mine. I've read

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it. It said I did not laugh at all. So I just laid down and cried a

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little. Then afterwards someone rang me and said congratulations on

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the reviews.e reviews.gle other one was fabulous. I made a vow to never

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read reviews. Do you still not freedom? No. At the centre the

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atmosphere around the house. Were people I tiptoeing like someone has

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died aged she and they are not very good. When people are bouncing and

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cheering into the run AC which is good. We have to take the reviews

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with a bit of salt. You have 76 four-length place.In your 70s. You

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had a stroke quite recently. It leads to the question of why you

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keep up the pace that you do. You are remarkably prolific as a

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playwright. I think I am like those ocean liners that take seven miles

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to stop. My impetus is carrying me through. I have been driven by a

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small theatre I'd run in North Yorkshire for so long. The

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expectation there is a new play every year, which I have provided.

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I still have that... I am going through the motions. I need to

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write the play. Do you want to write the play? I need to. It is a

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needing two. It is a requirement of life. I have never been without a

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play in my body since I was 17. should talk about the plays

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themselves. 8 Alan Ayckbourn playing his immediate the

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recognisable offence of your work. While you are the mark the --

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remarked -- remarkably. Everybody knows that what you will get his

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couples that any sense torturing each other emotionally. Is this a

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fair characterisation? They have gone darker as time goes on. I

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started writing quite lightweight place. They were mostly McCague the

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plot driven. As I went on and got to place like 'Absent Friends' I

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began to dig a little deeper. If you dig deeper on your characters

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obviously the darkness comes out. Most people inside have some kind

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of angst in them. If they do not they are not worth writing about. I

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have explored more and more. I always took the Jane Austen

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approach. Writing about the people my way forward. He was still making

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a social commentary on the Times? write about the men and women may

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see around be. With a player like 'Absent Friends' it is very much a

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child of the 70s. He could not updated. He would start asking all

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kinds of questions. Why do none of the women have jobs? To be in the

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revival scour you get 21st century actresses saying, why is this --

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why is she was into him in this way? Why wouldn't she tell him to

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shut up? Is that make them. Pieces? I would like to think that it is a

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social document. This is how we were. What has happened in the last

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30 or 40 years is quite considerable. The shift in the

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balance of the sexes has been quite considerable. You say to write

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about those around you. He also go through your own experience. He

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referred to the importance of your mother. From the sound of it she

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was an extraordinary character and quite an eccentric. She was very

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eccentric. She was a writer. Not a play right but a prose writer. She

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rode for magazines. Looking back on her she was my mother. I thought

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all mothers were like her. I thought they'd all broke China in

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the morning, Coast Main and typed away until lunch. As they get all

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that I look back on my child would and realise I was living with a

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unique person. If my mother had been a brilliant pastry chef at we

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probably have followed in her footsteps. But since she wrote I

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thought that was the way to earn a living. You say she cursed men.

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There was due to a series of relationships she had, not least

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with your father. My one regret is that I never knew my father very

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well. They used to go and visit him. He was a great fireless. He was the

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leader of the London Symphony Orchestra. My big regret is that I

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never saw him play. He had given up He said he laughed with him as you

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laughed with nobody else. If I had met him in a crowd and nobody had

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told me. Within ten minutes we would have been laughing at the

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same things. That is where I got my humour from. He was part of this -

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some other things you write about our relationships. Things everybody

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is familiar with. It must impart something of the relationships your

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mother had. In the holidays she used to drive me around with her.

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She would go off to the hairdressers and they remember the

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terrible smell of ammonia. But also Listening to Women talking. Small

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children and not really listening. They're just discounter well.

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Except that I had everything and I am very careful not to speak in

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front of small children because they are recording machines. They

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will play it back to you been used to come. Do you think that is why

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you're often described as a feminist writer? I think so. I'd

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New Labour wins world and it was very slow to. Do you think of

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yourself as a week -- feminist writer? Yes. Yes I do. It is not a

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big powerful stance, but I realised quite early on in my life that

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women did not have ever read it lost. The plays I was recording in

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the 70s reflected this. Quite ironically I thought women did not

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have much of a deal. I thought I had better corrected or at least

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reflected. He mentioned that job place over time have got darker. He

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have attributed that to the effect you had a stroke. Did it make a

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difference to what you're writing? I was getting darker before the

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stroke. What happened with the stroke was that when I woke up - he

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always think you're immortal. When something happens you think

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somebody has got by a number of there. The first thing I was aware

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of that I did not have a single idea in my head for the first time

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since I was 17. I had no idea for a player. A moment of panic came over

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me. Then I said to myself I have a directing career. Weeks and months

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passed and then middle germs such a degree of force of new ideas

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started to come in through the gate. That was a few years back and five

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or six days later. It mixes all the more remarkable that to say he did

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not intended to be brighter. Although you tell about a mother it

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was our only when Stephen Joseph who was a matter of viewers said,

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if you do not like the path as an actor he should write some. Haji

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not thought before that that you should write? I watched my mother

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right. I started trying to write short stories. I was rubbish at

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that. By the time I got to boarding school my prep school when I was 10.

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I adapted, plagiarised a famous book. They adapted it for myself to

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play the comical side kick. They are wonderful school stories. The

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agreed to stage it at the school. And then I'd have won this

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childhood diseases like chicken pox. I was stuck in the sanatorium on

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the first night. Might I middle much of that performance was

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leaning out of the window and saying to a friend, how was it? He

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I said, oh that's it. It was never done again. I started playing

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around by the time I went to public school. I was writing a little bit.

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What does seem odd is that in that long career of writing plays, you

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have not being taken by the lure of Hollywood or television? It isn't a

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low were to you? There are two reasons to that. I was born into

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theatre. I'm really a Renaissance man in theatre. I do a lot of

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recording and all the sound for my new shows. I did the lighting for

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them. I have also worked in all branches of theatre. I know that

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business inside and out. I do not know it well enough to do

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everybody's job, but I said me know when they're trying to snow me all

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bluff me. If you think of the reach, or the money or the acclaim that

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could come with reaching a wider audience, had the never been

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tempted by the idea of television or film? Well, I think I know where

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the power lies in film. It probably lies in the producer, director, the

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writer is somebody you stick at the end of the title. Certainly, I

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would have liked to be a French director. A film-maker, whatever

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they are called. I would make my own films. It is about keeping

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control. That is one of the reasons that that a certain point in 2002

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you bend your plays from being shown in London's West End. You

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were annoyed that the attempt of one of your productions, damsel in

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distress, but also because of the use of an obsession with using

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Hollywood stars? Yes, that obsession. It is very natural. As

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theatre gets more expensive, commercial theatre, and today, the

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money it cost to put on a show commercially, just a simple little

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stage play, like 'Absent Friends' is massively more expensive. The

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ticket prices reflect this. Management hang on to the edge of

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their seats. They look for safe passage. If your ship looks rocky

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at the start of the mast, you must let it flow through. Those people

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only, for me, they unbalance a play. I write all of my plays as if they

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are written for a tiny little company in the north-east of

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England and have always been written for a company. Normally,

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they are team players. If you look at a player like 'Absent Friends',

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it has six parts. Five of them are equal parts. You cannot say there

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that is the star part. When you look at the audience figures, the

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Society of London has audience figures, they credit the big names,

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the big Hollywood names as attracting people. They attract

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audiences to the theatre batter helping the business. It is working.

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Yes, it is. It is not my sort of theatre. I much prefer to watch a

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show, take a serious television series like like these terribly

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popular Danish shows. They have wonderful cars and beautiful acting.

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There is no expectation from anyone if you do not know them. -- Peter

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forecast. I do not know if it is a good guy or a bad guy. I wonder

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what Colin Firth is doing in the corner with very few lines. Of

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course, he is the bad guy. You get a little tilt on it. It is not a

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lot, but it is just enough. But what the play to be seen for what

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he tears. You did not sustain that then? You gave in? I have never

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directed a show in the West End myself. I have let them be done by

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others. I have just concentrated on the new ones. For instance, this

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last year entering our grounds, it is my very latest since

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Neighbourhood Watch. It is a play that is very far removed from

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'Absent Friends'. It is about their response from my Joe Public to the

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riots and protecting themselves. I have already written 76, which is

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called 'Surprises', which I would do in the summer. That is my next

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project. Do you mind that over the years, you have never got the

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critical respect that some of your contemporaries have? You have

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commented on it before, others have had certain a claim that you have

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not. -- acclaim. The so-called comic drama test often do not get

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it in our lifetime. People realise long after we are dead, he was

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quite funny. Their last much longer. The good play is last longer -- the

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good plays. They are much more relevance. We can wait. I wonder

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why you think that tears? Is it because you write comedy, because

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you write for the provinces, because you write about the middle

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classes? What is it? It is all of those. The early thing that makes

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me boil is that people say it is just a comedy. Do you realise how

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much skill and talent it takes to be a comic actor? Any fool can be

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tragic and see it -- standing there weeping their socks off. There is a

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lot of control of physical and verbal and instinct, which you are

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born with. It is the same with writing. People used to say to me,

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do you want to write a serious play? I said, all of my plays a

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very serious. I take them seriously. Without the committee, Norris. That

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is what brings the audience closer to your characters. You laugh with

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them, and for them. T E talk about Molly air, I wonder if you feel

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angry that perhaps there is an underestimation of your talents? --

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I heat you talk about Morley air. People see through it all. They see

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through to the basis. A Guardian critic has likened it to Chekhov?

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like that. One of my great heroes. No, I think it is sort of a funny

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thing. If you write a good comedy and you also have a serious intent

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underneath, half of you is saying that they are not supposed to see

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the serious intent, they are supposed to focus on the committee.

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The serious intent will hit them later. -- focus on the comedy. A

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man said that he enjoyed the play, had a very good laugh, but if I did

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not know what I was laughing about, I think that that is a nice time

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bomb of a play. The next project for you, I wonder what city is that

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would make you think that you have unpacked something else to think

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about, what would it be? The new one is about ageing. That is not

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surprising. Once I start writing things there is a lot of people

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writing about that. In the papers, people are talking about the NHS

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and far too many old people in society. One of my characters says

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I'm 120 Isolde my doctors say if I'm lucky I will have another 60

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Goodyears. -- by M 120 years old. Longevity is probably my next

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project. The process of being in the rehearsal room is one that she

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loved and will stay at? Being in rehearsals with a group of like-

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minded actors is a wonderful thing for an increasingly elderly man,

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because of the energy with the young actors. I said once this year

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