Alan Ayckbourn - Greetings from Scarborough imagine...

This programme contains some strong language

Scarborough, a seaside town on England's Yorkshire coast,

and Britain's very first holiday resort.

Families and fun-seekers have been drawn to its shores

since the early 1600s,

coming to bathe in its wide sandy beaches,

and enjoy its traditional seaside entertainment.

But that's not really why I'm here.

Do you know what's it like, Dennis, to feel undesirable?

No, no, I can't say I do.

-Norman, not that!

-Why not?

-Norman!

-Because it's wrong.

-Wrong?

Is it wrong to sit between my old pal Reg and this dwarf on my left?

-Hello, little chap.

-Hello.

-Norman!

They've been wrong, telling me to marry Paul and have babies,

if they're not even going to let you keep them.

And I should have joined the Mounted Police.

That's what I should have done.

I should have joined the Mounted Police.

TEARFULLY: I want to join the Mounted Police!

-Please!

-I'll get Paul.

-What's the matter with her?

Paul! >

SHE SCREAMS

-What's the matter with her?

-You'll have to get a doctor.

Dance, dance, dance. Come on, keep the feet moving, otherwise we never know when you've stopped. Stop!

-It's much wrong again.

-Wrong again!

I've come to Scarborough because it's the home of Sir Alan Ayckbourn -

the world's most successful playwright.

When I came up here, Alan, I came up a road called Paradise Road,

and as I came to the top of Paradise Road, I thought to myself,

"You know, I can see why it's called Paradise Road."

Because it was this beautiful vision of the sea at the top of the road.

Yes, we're in the old town, right bang in the middle of it.

It's really the most interesting part of Scarborough.

It's steeped in history, the whole place is wonderful.

And when you first came here, what drew you here?

This was, what, in the '50s you came here?

I was looking for a job, quite honestly. I was a young...

aspiring actor -

then an acting ASM working in places like Leatherhead

and Oxford Playhouse.

But I was a Londoner and was very ignorant of things north.

And then somebody, as they do in the end of a season,

I think it was in Leatherhead, said, "Anyone fancy a job in Scarborough?"

And I said, "Where the hell is Scarborough?"

They said, "Oh, it's somewhere up there.

"You go up to York and then turn right."

Alan Ayckbourn was born in London in 1939.

His father Horace was lead violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra,

while his mother, Irene Worley,

was a writer of short stories, better known as the novelist Mary James,

or, to her close family, as Lolly.

I don't know if it's true or not true,

but you were quite possibly conceived at Glyndebourne one afternoon

when your father Horace, who was a violinist with the LSO,

was performing at Glyndebourne.

Your mother might have taken to sex in the afternoon and here you are.

That's a nice story. I wasn't there...

Well, I was around at the time but I can't vouch for it.

My mother was a ferocious...

She was a writer, so she made up awful stories.

But I'm sure that one was true. It's a nice way to be conceived, isn't it? At Glyndebourne.

I couldn't think of anything nicer. But your mother...

The story of your mother is absolutely captivating.

You thought she was married to your father but you then discovered

that she wasn't actually married to Horace.

Yeah, I said, "Hey, folks, I'm illegitimate." And that's terrific.

-How romantic.

-It's quite a thing, when you probably discovered that.

When did you discover that? In the late '50s?

-Oh, no, much later than that. '70s, I think.

-Wow.

-So you didn't realise?

-I was old enough to find it quite romantic.

I think it would have been quite traumatic if I'd only been 10 or 11.

In fact, one day we were on a bus and I met...

this extraordinary man in a beret.

He said, "Oh, hello, Boo."

I thought, "Who the hell's Boo?" And it turned out to be my mother.

He said, "Hello, darling, I haven't seen you for ages."

And he gave her a kiss and chat, chat, chat. I said, "Who was that?"

She said, "Oh, that's my ex-husband."

I said, "Really?" He turned out to be her current husband, actually.

Very jolly little man. I've never seen him again.

So he might well be my father, I don't know.

The romance between Horace and Lolly didn't last,

and Ayckbourn's parents separated.

Alan remained with his mother.

As a child, how...?

I mean, here you are, your father Horace and your mother have split.

Why did they split?

I think he was a serial romancer, my daddy, quite honestly.

And he was sitting in the front row of the fiddle section of the LSO

and every now and then, he cast a look behind him

and there was another lovely, young, new violinist.

He'd say, "Hi what are you doing after the concert?"

If Mum wasn't in the audience.

I think that's probably how he met Daphne, his new wife.

And...

I asked my mum once why they split up.

She said, "I'd just had enough of it.

"I had all these women ringing up, saying...

TEARFULLY: "I love him. I love him. He's the most beautiful man..."

She'd go, "Yeah, yeah, you should try living with him."

And then the 45th one rang up and said, "I love him,"

and she thought, "No, this one's a sticker."

And so she said, "OK, you can have him."

I think she'd just had enough, really. But he was a charmer.

Your mother was extraordinary.

Not only did she have her own typewriter and typing away,

writing her stories for magazines, and her short stories,

but she bought you a typewriter at the age of six.

So do I take it that you would both be sitting in the kitchen writing away together?

I can remember...

You know how those little flashes of childhood come back to you.

I have a vivid one of me sitting under...

well, at table-leg height,

getting covered in this terrible violet blue ink

that the typewriter gave me.

And she was thundering away at 120 words per minute.

Rat-a-tat-tah.

I just sat there and watched my mum.

And she dragged me along with her to places like the Women's Press Club,

which is the most terrifying thing for a male to be in.

Men weren't allowed in!

But because I was not really a male, but a very small male,

I would sit amongst these very, very strong-minded, strong-voiced,

heavily made-up ladies of the press.

Quite fearsome, most of them. Quite scary.

And I sat there... I remember being in hairdressers

and all sorts of strange places, editor's offices,

and incredibly glamorous women floated in and out.

-Wow.

-So these strong-minded women, of course,

are one of the features of your plays, which, I think,

in its own way, it was rather revolutionary at the time to see

ordinary middle-class women,

suddenly to see them in all their strength and personality,

and, obviously, one begins to understand why, given that

you had this sort of domination of a woman in your life

who introduced you to this world.

Yes. I mean, she...

I always think I was privileged to have what few men get the chance of -

maybe a lot of them don't want it -

but sitting listening to women talking to each other,

woman to woman.

And with the small child open tape-recorder going,

who is completely invisible to them or forgotten about.

And it came back a few years... several years later,

women come up and say, "How do you know that?

"How do you know that's what we talk about?"

# I'm going to love you

# Like nobody's loved you

# Come rain or come shine

# High as a mountain

# And deep as a river

# Come rain or come shine

# I guess when you met me

# It was just one of those... #

-Have you got him to sleep?

-Yes.

-Aw.

They look so lovely like that, don't they? Like little cherubs.

Yes, well, I'm really glad you could come this afternoon.

Colin really will appreciate that.

Seeing us all.

What I'm saying is, really, I wouldn't blame him...

not altogether...if he did...

with someone else, you know, another woman.

Wouldn't blame him, wouldn't blame her. Not as long as I was told.

Providing I know, that I'm told, all right.

Providing I feel able to say to people,

"Yes, I am well aware that my husband is having an affair with such-and-such or whoever,

"that's quite all right, I know all about it.

"We're both grown-up people, we know what we're doing.

"He knows I know, she knows I know. So mind your own business."

I'd feel right about it.

But I will not stand deception.

I'm simply asking that I be told.

Not to...necessarily know.

But sometimes. See?

After Lolly's marriage broke down, she married again.

This time, to the local bank manager, Cecil.

And then Lolly didn't even tell you she was about to get married again?

There was a letter somewhere from me saying, "Dear, Mummy, I hope you have a nice marriage."

And she... Yeah.

I was at boarding school from the age of seven.

Probably to accommodate her life as much as anything.

So many of these features,

this sort of rather dysfunctional family life that you had,

-seem to find their way quite easily into lots of your plays.

-Yeah.

I'm not aware that my feelings towards you have altered that much.

-What, not at all?

-Not that I'm aware of. I still feel the same.

Oh, Gerard, we don't kiss, we hardly touch each other.

We don't make love, we don't even share the same bed now, we sleep at different ends of the room!

That's just sex you're talking about, the sexual side.

-Yes, of course it is.

-There's more to it than that, surely?

Not at the moment there isn't.

You mean that the sex is the only thing that's mattered to you in our relationship?

-No, of course not.

-Well, that's what you seem to be saying.

-What I'm saying is...

All I'm saying is that once that's gone,

all that, it becomes important.

If you hadn't been the son of Lolly,

would you have written Woman In Mind?

Well, I was aware that my mother was, at that point, going,

as it were, slightly round the twist.

And she was getting increasingly eccentric, even by her standards.

And then the doctor, banging vaults into her head,

didn't seem a very good idea.

Cos it didn't seem to be making her any better.

That experience stayed with me

and then I read the remarkable Oliver Sacks book,

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat.

And I realised the potential

for perceiving things that weren't there,

or the complex games your brain plays with you.

Squeezy cow, squeezy.

I have no idea what you're saying.

-What are you saying?

-Sore bite. Sore bite.

Who are you, anyway?

-Where am I?

-Octabinsa. Climb octabinsa.

This is sure pardon, choosem.

Oh, God, I've died.

-TEARFULLY:

-Oh, I'm in hell.

-I've died and I've gone to hell.

-Choosen.

Oh, why have I gone to hell? Why me?

-I've tried so terribly hard, too. Oh, terribly hard.

-Susan.

You've no idea how hard I've tried. There must be some mistake.

-Susan.

-Susan.

Yes, that's me. Susan.

Me, Susan!

As Alan helped his mother to rebuild her life again

after the breakdown of yet another marriage,

he began trying to establish himself as an actor.

It was while at boarding school that Alan Ayckbourn got his first taste of the theatre.

Then an old school master, acquainted with the legendary actor-manager Sir Donald Wolfit,

set him up with his first professional audition.

He was the first professional actor I met up close.

And I thought they were all like him.

Good morning to the day.

And of course, he was a complete leftover from another era.

Oh, Volpone, by blood and rank a gentleman, canst not...

In meeting Wolfit, I was in direct touch with Irving and Tree and all the way back.

And here was the last of the great actor-managers.

Everything he said was law.

Big, big, big. Big face.

Paws the size of potholes.

..and lame indeed.

HOWLS

Full of old Five and Nine, make-up, which he'd never quite removed after generations of...

So he'd stick his face very close to you and say, "What are you doing?"

And you'd say, "Just bringing in..."

And he'd say, "Well, walk properly."

Anyway, it was encouraging, and, um...I auditioned for the great man.

Were you any good?

Well, not that bad. I mean, I lacked an awful lot of technique,

but what I lacked in technique, I made up for a lot in sincerity.

And because I knew better than to show my lack of technique,

I kept very, very still on stage.

And, um, I got a lot of reviews. "His lizard-like stillness."

I wanted to be part of the theatre. I wanted to be an actor.

After his summer season with Wolfit, Ayckbourn went to work at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing.

From there he moved on to the Thorndike in Leatherhead.

It was at the end of that season that he heard about a job going in Scarborough.

I came up on the train and then got picked up in a van and got driven

over the most fantastic countryside.

When I arrived, there were several things going for it. First, it was by the seaside,

which was ace as far as I was concerned, wonderful.

The second thing was that, um...

that it was a theatre in the round, which was good news as a stage manager

because it meant much less heavy humping and moving of scenery.

So, um, that was good news.

And third, of course, was it was run by a man called Stephen Joseph, whom I was yet to meet.

I was employed sight unseen by this extraordinary maverick figure.

Stephen Joseph was to become Alan Ayckbourn's mentor and inspiration.

The son of actress Hermione Gingold and publisher Michael Joseph

was a stage director and a pioneer of theatre in the round.

It turned out Stephen was a... was a theatre figure

who did not easily court popularity.

I mean, he attacked all established forms of theatre,

which, as a 17-, 18-year-old, I thought was tremendous.

He arrived here by accident on his motorbike one day

in pursuit of a space and the chief librarian said, "You can have the first floor."

I don't think he knew what he was letting himself in for.

Stephen Joseph opened the Library Theatre in Scarborough,

Britain's first professional theatre in the round,

in 1955.

So, there was this little makeshift space, with temporary seating,

and do-it-yourself rostra, which we put up individually.

And then this little acting area, 22 by 24,

in which he proceeded to do mostly large, mostly new plays.

Despite London being at the centre of new British drama,

Ayckbourn was more than happy to remain in Scarborough working with Stephen Joseph.

In 1959, he made his debut as a writer with a play called The Square Cat,

written with his then wife, Christine Roland,

under the pseudonym, Roland Alan.

The Square Cat came about as a row I had with Stephen because I was appearing in a play

and I came off complaining about the part and he said,

"If you can write a better play than this, you're on."

And I said, "Anyone can write a better play than that. I'm...

"I'll take you on, mate."

So the following summer, I presented him with...well, just before that, I presented him with The Square Cat,

which was...my whole ego was blown to bits

because I was writing for myself a leading role

where I displayed talents which I did not have,

singing, dancing, all smiling.

And, um...of course...

-Playing the guitar.

-Playing the guitar.

-Which you couldn't play.

I got three lessons from a guy in Trafalgar Row just along the road.

The Square Cat, written, directed and starring Ayckbourn,

'was a farcical comedy and proved to be a hit with the Scarborough seaside audiences.'

Was it because this was a place which expected to be entertained

that you felt you had to write something which WOULD entertain them, one way or another?

I think that was always in me.

I mean, inclement weather was fortunately on our side, I think.

We all looked out of the window at 12 o'clock on a matinee day and prayed for rain

because a quick, sharp shower would bring them running in.

Um, and, um...

I think, I think...Stephen's idea,

which was populist,

really, I mean, he just wanted to widen the barriers - which I carried on with -

widen the basis for theatre, where...

There's a terrible feeling in this country, quite often,

where people feel that theatre is not for them.

They are born with that feeling and they go on feeling that.

And, um...one spent one's life trying to say,

"Well, it is. You watch much more difficult things on television every day of your life,

"and yet theatre seems to be difficult, it's hard work."

Ayckbourn continued to write a play each year for the Library Theatre's summer season

and by 1964, writing under his own name,

the experimental Mr Whatnot was the first of his plays

to be staged in the West End.

And despite a stellar cast, including Ronnie Barker,

it proved to be a colossal flop.

Universally sank with all hands on board. It was a terrible disaster.

And Stephen said,

"Look, forget Mr Whatnots and things, which are all very experimental for their time,

"why don't you just try and write a well-made play?" And I went, "Well-made play? Please!

"I'm a new dramatist. I don't want to write Rattigan or Coward, for goodness sake."

Heavens! So I...

Then he persuaded me and I sat down and tried to write a well-made play.

It nearly worked. Not quite.

But it sort of...had wheels.

Well, it wheeled to the West End.

-Yeah.

-And it had Richard Briers in it and Celia Johnson.

-And it was a big hit.

-Yeah, yeah.

So Alan actually chose you to play the part of Greg.

Greg, that's right, yes. A young man in those days.

And they said Ayckbourn was coming to the theatre just to see a little run-through early.

And he appeared, this rather badly-put-together person, and...

with this one, terrible old suitcase and appeared in the auditorium.

I said, "Oh, Mr Ayckbourn, nice to see you."

And I said, "Are you all right?"

-He said, "I'm staying in digs at the moment."

-In digs?

-Yes, digs.

-And I said, "You haven't got much luggage."

-He said, "Well, I've only got one suit."

And I said, "That's dreadful!" And he'd had a tiny flop at the Arts Theatre,

and this, relatively speaking, was unbelievable success.

I couldn't believe it, er... when the reviews started coming in

and the box office started rattling.

And my bank balance went from alarmingly red to alarmingly black

in about the space of two weeks.

And then you got a telegram.

Yes, from the man whom I'd scorned - Noel Coward.

And what did it say?

"Dear Alan Ayckbourn, thank you so much for a beautifully constructed, beautifully written play.

"Yours sincerely, Noel Coward."

And I rang Dicky Briers up and said,

"I got a... Are you winding me up? Someone sent me

"a telegram from Noel Coward." He said, "No, he was in last night.

"He said he loved it, old boy."

And I said, "Did he talk about it?"

He said, "No, he just said, 'How old is the author?'

"And I said, 'Well, he's probably 26.'

"And he went, 'Oh, dear God! How depressing!' and left the room."

And, um...so that was nice.

It was a nice moment.

So there's this play which is phenomenally successful, which puts you on the map,

but all this in the context of the theatre scene in London changing.

Did you feel slightly isolated in...

BOTH LAUGH

I was writing plays with French windows, for God's sake!

The dramatist with so many people who don't worry about, you know,

the war in Suez or anything, they just worry about cups of tea.

So, um...I got a reputation rather rapidly for being...

Phrases were used like, um...

dizzy spin-like thistledown, you know, and all that business.

So I was certainly lightweight.

And, er, so I stuck with that label for quite a few years.

Remember, this was the mid '60s,

and British theatre had been revolutionised in the previous decade.

Osborne's Look Back In Anger, Beckett's Waiting For Godot,

Stoppard's Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead,

Bond's Saved, and, of course, there was Harold Pinter.

When The Birthday Party flopped on its London debut,

out of the blue, Pinter approached Stephen Joseph in Scarborough

and proposed that he direct his own production

under the banner of Scarborough's theatre in the round.

So he arrived. And I remember, we auditioned for him in...

Glasshouse Stores in... It was a pub in Brewer Street, um, upstairs.

He looked at me and said, "Stanley." So I read Stanley, sight unseen.

I said, "He's very interesting, this pianist, isn't he?

"He comes...he comes on and talks about his concert career

"and then two men come along in a van and they bundle him out and he's taken off somewhere.

"So what I'm really interested in knowing, Harold,

"is where he comes from, and secondly where he goes to in the van."

And he gave me that very serious look and he said,

"I think the answer to that is mind your own fucking business."

I said, "Ah, thank you very much."

It's an answer I've always wanted to give an actor, but never had the courage to.

That was a very valuable note from Harold.

I thought, oh, maybe this guy does know what he's doing.

Just six months after Relatively Speaking opened in London,

Ayckbourn's mentor, Stephen Joseph, died.

But there was no question that Alan would remain in Scarborough,

continuing the work that Stephen Joseph had begun.

Over the next few years, a pattern emerged.

Every summer, Alan would write and direct a new play for Scarborough

that would transfer to London the following year,

albeit with a more established director and a starrier cast.

In 1973, a year after he formally took over

as the artistic director of the Library Theatre, Ayckbourn wrote

what is arguably his most famous play.

-Norman?

-Hm? I mean yes?

The Norman Conquest trilogy charts the relationships of six characters

as they come together over a weekend at a country house.

Each play takes place, respectively,

in the dining room, the sitting room, and the garden.

They weren't designed for people who share a house with Norman.

Despite the riotous success of the plays in Scarborough,

London producers were reluctant to put all three straight into the West End.

But Ayckbourn didn't want them to be split up.

So eventually, The Norman Conquest made its London debut at the Greenwich Theatre.

Tom Courtenay played the part of Norman, and was joined by a cast

that would go on to be future stars of British television.

Let's get seated.

Now, um, Reg, you go up the end there, won't you?

One of the most popular of all Ayckbourn's plays,

The Norman Conquest is also the closest to pure farce.

'There's a scene when they have dinner.'

Penny Keith is trying to set the places where everybody is to sit.

No, not there, Ruth dear. Would you mind sitting one seat further up?

'Eric Thompson,'

he directed the placement scene perfectly logically.

It was quite amusing and it made sense.

And then Alan came to see it being rehearsed.

No, you're here, Tom. Sit here.

-Oh.

-Annie, you should be sitting here, you're the hostess.

No, she can't sit there, she's out of order.

-She's the hostess, she should sit at the head.

-We've two women together.

-I'll move down here, that's easy enough.

-No, Ruth, you stay where you are...

'I remember, it was very confusing'

and we didn't quite know how to pace it.

And he did come in.

Cos he sort of saw in his head exactly how it should be.

I don't want to worry you, but now you've got a woman at both ends.

That's what I'm saying. Why don't you listen?

No, we've got Ruth there, then Annie, Norman over there and Tom next to...

Ah, that's where we've gone wrong.

Tom, you're in the wrong seat.

-But I thought she said...

-I'd like to sit down permanently.

-Will you listen?

-Tom, move to the end.

-Reg!

-I've just moved from there.

-I'm sitting down now...

'His one simple move, that only he knew about, made the thing.'

It grew from being quite amusing to hysterically funny.

And he has this sort of thing in his head about what's funny.

Tom.

-Tom, you are sitting here.

-Oh. Back where I started.

-Reg, at the top.

-This is wrong, you know.

-At the top!

-Ruth...

-I've sat down, I refuse to get up.

Ruth, you are all right where you are.

-Good evening, carry on, talk amongst yourselves.

-No, not there, Norman.

Is that my father's suit you've got on?

If he was a man with extraordinary arm and inside leg measurements,

-yes, indeed.

-Norman, not there.

-Why not?

-Because it's wrong.

Is it wrong to sit between my old pal Reg and this dwarf on my left?

-Hello, little chap.

-Hello.

-Norman!

-Sarah, this is all right, I'll sit here.

-But now we've got...

-This is fine.

-It's fine.

-Fine.

I mean, it was an absolutely huge hit, wasn't it?

I mean, huge, huge.

And the little bit where I sat at the dining table

on a small chair, the table's down, I ate like that...

I actually saw a bloke one night fall out of his seat

in the circle.

Laughing. We couldn't stop them.

Penny Keith would be standing there on my left.

Penny doesn't corpse, but she just couldn't hold it.

The...the fright of it.

The whole house up. Brilliant.

I'd make it worse by going lower in the chair.

HE LAUGHS

I don't think I've ever before or since heard laughter like it.

Certainly not in Table Manners.

For years afterwards,

I couldn't go to have dinner with anyone, ever,

without people saying to me, "Oh, Penny, come on, you know how to place people around."

The joyful thing about that is people used to say to me about Sarah,

"You know, she's so like my mother, she so like my sister,

"she's so like my wife."

By the summer of 1975,

five Ayckbourn plays were running simultaneously in the West End,

the most ever by a single author.

To mark his success across the Atlantic,

where four Ayckbourns were playing,

the corner of Broadway and 45th Street was renamed Ayckbourn Alley for the day.

Quite an achievement for a writer

who many were still eager to dismiss as a lightweight entertainer.

But by now, Alan Ayckbourn's heart belonged to Scarborough

and he had determined his future, indeed, his destiny, was here.

It's a small community. It's bigger than a village,

and small enough not to become impersonal.

As they say, all human life is here.

In fact, once you settle here,

which I've only just done permanently,

and realised the undercurrents that go on,

the politics and the rises and falls of individuals,

which probably suit my style of writing,

because I do write about small communities as a rule, not big general worldwide events.

It's one big landlady in summer, Scarborough.

It opens up and welcomes the rest of the world, a million visitors.

And in winter it becomes itself again

when everyone goes about their own occupations.

In the winter of 1976, rehearsals got under way

for the Library Theatre's production of Just Between Ourselves.

I honestly think Pam and me have reached the end of the road.

SANDER WHIRRING

I'm saying Pam and me have reached the end of the road.

Ah.

Terrible thing to say.

She's drinking as well, you know.

-Yeah, I'm the cause of that.

-I shouldn't think so.

'Well, what I always try to do is write a very serious play.

'Hopefully, it has this veneer of fun on top of it but it's only a veneer.'

Women need a rock.

A rock.

Trouble is I'm a bloody marshmallow.

SANDER WHIRRING

Weakness in a man, that's something women can never respect...

It is both funny and terribly, terribly sad.

And it depends where you're standing. And I love that sort of humour.

It is laughter on the one side, but tragedy on the other.

And the two can run together.

That's been my discovery through life of my plays.

You know what it's like, Dennis?

To feel undesirable?

No, no, I can't say I do.

LAUGHTER

-That's what he's done to me.

-Sorry, who has? Are we still talking about Neil?

He's made me feel ashamed.

Why should I be made to feel ashamed?

-Depends what you've been up to, eh?

-HE LAUGHS

Hasn't even paid me the compliment of going after another woman.

I think I could accept that. Just about.

But to be frozen out...

So I was unnatural.

Some kind of freak.

-Start her up, Dennis.

-I can't,

-I haven't got the keys.

-Start her up and let's slip away.

Vroom, vroom.

-You all right?

-Vroom.

-Pam... Pam!

-Vroom! Vroom!

-Now, come on, Pam. Pam!

-Vroom...oh...

-Oh, Dennis.

-What is it?

I think I'm going to be carsick.

Hold on! Not on the upholstery you won't. Come on.

Come on.

Oh, blimey O'Reilly. Bloody pikeys!

You can say what you like, Dennis. I'm not staying out here a moment longer. I want my surprise, Dennis.

-Mother, can you give me a hand, please?

-You naughty boy.

-Look, mother!

-It's all right, Dennis. It's all right. I've seen nothing, you needn't worry.

-Mother!

-It's all right. There's no-one in there.

-Can somebody give me a hand?

-Get out of my way.

All right, on your own head be it.

Dennis? Dennis...

-Could you give us a hand, please?

-I told you not to come in. Serve you right.

There are certain things it's best a wife doesn't know about.

You poisonous old woman! You're loving this, aren't you?

It's what you wanted all along, wasn't it?!

Dennis would go off with somebody to break up my home!

-Don't know what you're talking about. You're being...

-You nasty old toad!

-Oh!

-You've always hated me.

-You've always wanted my home.

-Now, Vera...

I don't know what's come over you. What's the matter with you?

Please! Vera!

-'I want you to put that...

-You old toad!

-Put that...'

COMMOTION CONTINUES TO FADE

'You CAN walk safely in daylight on your own street

'without feeling threatened,

'without being subjected to 9-foot high obscene graffiti'

on every street corner.

Parents, you CAN feel confident your children are free to go outside to play.

Women, you can now walk without fear alone at night.

There IS someone here for you, speaking out for you,

fighting your corner, and that man is here!

Standing in front of you today! Thank you and bless you all!

CANNED APPLAUSE

Alan Ayckbourn's latest play, Neighbourhood Watch,

not only deals with the familiar themes of the aspirational and dysfunctional world

of Middle England, but is also uncannily prescient

about the state of Britain today

and, in particular, the turbulent summer of 2011.

-They've just been arrested.

-Arrested, who has?

The Wrigleys, two of them, anyway. Typical police cock-up.

Can you believe they send two officers, two!

One of them was barely an officer. It was a policewoman.

That's all they sent...

'It's about a group of well-meaning citizens

'living on a suburban estate somewhere in the land I usually visit.

'Sort of, four or five miles outside Redding.'

...as bent as the Wrigleys, as they saw it...

'And they get fearful as, indeed, people do these days

'about violence and crime

'and imagined violence and imagined crime

'and so they start a well-meaning neighbourhood watch scheme,

'only it goes sadly awry.'

We never intended to run our neighbourhood watch scheme on fear, did we?

Not exactly fear, just the occasional warning.

You know, the occasional friendly warning.

-Like the warning they gave to Mr Button?

-What warning was that?

-They set fire to his pigeons.

-Dear heaven!

'It was written last October, I think.'

As we were rehearsing, people kept...

Journalists kept ringing up and saying, "Can you foresee the future?"

And I said, "Well, I thought it might happen,

but I didn't realise it was actually going to happen."

Then we were sort of torn between being terribly topical

and wishing the riots would stop.

I've taken certain precautions out there since the incident.

I put up properly-worded signs. "Private property." "Trespassers will be prosecuted."

That sort of thing, at regular intervals...

'It does embrace a lot of my concerns about society today.'

I'll be amazed if half of them can read anyway.

'We've polarised into people who take very extreme views.'

We do need to take action, certainly.

I believe it must fall well short of unprovoked violence.

Despite Ayckbourn's self-evident writing credentials

and the box office bonanza greeting each one of his plays,

his knack of giving theatregoers a good night out

still grated with the majority of critics and reviewers well into the '70s.

So it came as a shock when Sir Peter Hall,

the director of the National Theatre,

not only commissioned him to write a new play,

but asked him to co-direct as well.

Alan surprised everybody by his...

certainty of who he was...

as a writer.

I wasn't going to do Bedroom Farce

if the author didn't really want me to.

So I tried to manufacture a situation where he did

what I wanted and I did what he wanted.

And it...it worked.

How did the critics respond to the fact that you had put this on?

Oh, they were enraged, almost to a man,

that we should be using public money

in order to amuse ourselves by doing commercial plays.

This was disgraceful!

I mean, I really couldn't believe it. I thought they'd taken leave of their senses.

Peter Hall was bravely and defiantly single-minded.

If some thought Bedroom Farce sat uncomfortably

with the familiar National repertoire of classics and new writing,

they'd also failed to notice that Ayckbourn's play

had been the longest-running show in repertoire in the National's history,

and was providing the subsidised theatre with much-needed income as well.

Peter Hall wanted Alan Ayckbourn back at the National,

directing, not only his own work, but other playwrights', too.

There's a quote in the biography of Alan which says,

which quotes you as saying, to Alan Ayckbourn,

"No doubt, you can do very well without the National Theatre.

"But can the National Theatre do without you?"

Yes, I hope it's one of those enigmatic questions.

That was quite a brave thing to do.

-I mean, someone who...

-Yeah.

Who was, I thought,

a very good director, but not sure of it himself.

And I think the test of him coming to the National

and the test of me asking him to come to the National

are both of them pretty dangerous moments.

But theatre is like that.

Alan took leave of absence from Scarborough and headed south,

a big step for the writer who'd enjoyed the autonomy of being outside of London.

But Hall had presented him with an offer he just couldn't refuse -

to direct a whole season at the National

with his own company of actors.

Alan said that you were the one actor he knew he wanted

from the start when he was casting.

He tells the story of how he took you out for lunch

and as you're both men of few words and large appetites, as he put it,

you had "fixed the season before the soup was on the table."

Yes. And then we just carried on eating.

Alan's quite quick when he wants to be. He just put the whole season in front of me

as though it would make any difference to me, as though I'd read it,

I just looked at it and said, "That's perfect."

He gives you a lot of freedom to develop your own character.

He's a great director. He's calm.

And logical and...

good.

I took out of my own moat to give to her. I took out of my wife's moat.

I walk hungry plenty of days in this city

and now I've got to sit in my own house

and look at a son of a bitch punk, like that, which he come out of nowhere.

I give my house to sleep.

Take the blankets off my bed for him.

And he takes and puts his dirty, filthy hands on her like a goddamn thief!

-But, Eddie, she's a woman now!

-Stealing from me.

She wants to get married, Eddie. She can't marry you, can she?

What are you talking about marrying me? What the hell are you talking about?

Arthur Miller saw Ayckbourn's production of the View from the Bridge

and said that it was the best he had ever seen.

Despite his residency at the National,

Ayckbourn continued to write for the company in Scarborough,

returning each year for the traditional summer season.

I mean, it is almost... He finishes with...

I mean, almost that.

Many of his earlier plays were now seen as classics

and were not only a staple of the amateur dramatics scene,

but proving hugely popular on television

with a regular slot in the Christmas TV listings.

Absurd Person Singular is set in three kitchens

over three consecutive Christmases.

-Still raining, I see.

-Oh, shut the door, it's coming in.

Oh, cats and dogs. Dogs and cats.

18.23.

18.23, getting on.

-Seven minutes, they'll be here.

-Oh.

-I've got a few games lined up.

-Games?

-Just in case.

This production made a lasting impression

on a young Catherine Tate.

I would have been about 13 or something,

and I just happened to stumble upon this,

this sort of event going on on my television.

And with people that I don't think up until that point,

I'd recognise from TV.

I'd more recognise them from my life, probably!

And I was really pulled in by it.

-MUMBLED:

-You know.

-Hmm?

-What?

-Presents.

-The what?

SHE MUMBLES

Oh, well, yes, of course! That's why we came, wasn't it?

-We've brought you a present.

-Seasonal something!

-Oh!

-Thank you.

-Oh, I'm afraid we didn't

bring anything for you and your husband.

-We didn't realise you'd be here, you see.

-Oh, sorry about that.

-Never mind.

-Not to worry.

Oh, we could give them the...

-You know, that we got given this evening.

-The what?

-You know, the...

-That we got in the thing.

-What, that? They don't want that!

No, I meant the...

You know!

SHE PANTS

Oh, well, if you like.

Now, this is nothing very much.

We were given it this evening in a cracker, actually.

Now, we were going to keep it for our budgie,

but we thought your George might like it.

For his collar!

Oh.

-So you know where he is!

-Yeah, as if you couldn't guess!

Woof, woof!

-Woof, woof!

-Thank you.

Woof, woof! Woof, woof!

-Thanks a lot.

-Right, that's your lot, no more.

I'm terribly sorry, but I'm afraid we haven't got you anything at all.

We're not really much ones for present-buying.

-Oh, we didn't expect it!

-No, no!

'It had a very lasting effect on me,

'to the point where I thought what I knew I wanted to do was after

'I had seen the TV show, I wanted to see the words.'

Because I think his language

and the precision of his characterisation is exquisite,

and it just made...it delighted me.

What I really honed into was the comedy of it,

it wasn't comedy with a laughter track, it was proper comedy acting.

But there was nowhere to tell you when to laugh.

There was these people, not in happy situations,

but what was coming out of it, well, it was painfully funny.

But for me, I just thought, "Wow, amazing."

Something really struck me about the image of this scene

carrying on where a woman is trying to kill herself.

And Eva, I think the character is,

and there's lots of domestic stuff going on, and in the background

this woman is trying to concuss herself on the oven,

or hang herself,

and I just thought, "This is a world that's opened up to me,"

and I just got very excited about it.

-CRASH Oh!

-Aah!

-Mrs Jackson!

-Aah!

You shouldn't be down on the cold floor, you know,

not in your condition.

You should be in bed, surely. Here. Now, you sit down here.

There. Oh, now, don't you worry about that oven now. That oven can wait.

You clean it later!

No point damaging your health for an oven, is there?

Mind you, I know just how you feel.

You suddenly get that urge, don't you?

You say to yourself, "I must clean that oven if it kills me.

"I shan't sleep, I shan't eat until I've cleaned that oven."

It haunts you. I know just that feeling!

The women, in a way, come across more sympathetically

in his plays, ultimately, than anyone else, don't they?

Yeah. I've no doubt that's to do with the extraordinary bond and influence

of his mother, and I guess, presumably,

that's where he gets his writing genes,

because she was churning out stuff at a rate of knots, wasn't she?

-She was.

-On the kitchen table,

and the idea that she got him one to bang along with...

But yeah, he has

a fantastic take on the women,

on the female characters that he writes.

In February 1999, Alan's mother, Lolly,

the woman who'd inspired him since childhood, passed away.

Your mother lived to quite a ripe old age, didn't she?

-She was in her 80s...

-80s, yeah.

..when she died, and at her funeral at Scarborough in the crematorium,

you brought her here, you wrote an address,

and I think Heather read it, didn't she?

Yeah. I couldn't read it. I said it would just break me up.

And then she read it, and she burst into tears, bless her.

I just want to read you some of it, because it's rather extraordinary.

"To someone who gave me gin as a baby to help me sleep at night,

"who once introduced me to a strange man in a beret

"on top of a bus in the Strand as a previous husband,

"who made me a birthday cake when I was seven,

"short-sightedly using salt instead of sugar,

"who once threw my father's framed photograph of me at me in a fury,

"and told me all men were bastards..."

THEY CHUCKLE

"..who one night fell through my front door

"so drunk that I had to carry her to bed,

"who gave me far more complexes, hang-ups,

"phobias, prejudices, inspirations and self-insights

"than any writer has a right to expect from a parent.

"To her, many thanks, much love, and farewell."

Well, I knew...

I was determined to write something, and I sort of sat down,

and I thought, "I can't write a lot of sentimental schmaltz,"

because that wasn't our relationship at all.

I mean, it was much sparkier than that.

So I thought, "Well, I'll just pile on the images

"just as they come to me,"

and that was my mum.

THEY SPEAK IN FRENCH

You're probably thinking,

"Why am I watching a film by that great master of French cinema,

"Alain Resnais,

"director of Last Year In Marienbad and Hiroshima Mon Amour?"

Well, that film,

which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival five years ago,

is the third made by Resnais adapted from an Ayckbourn play.

It's no exaggeration to say that after his mother,

Resnais is Ayckbourn's greatest fan.

I've come to Paris to interview him and his wife, Sabine.

Resnais has asked to meet me at this hotel, however,

he's notoriously shy, and does not wish to be seen on camera.

THEY SPEAK IN FRENCH

Resnais and his wife, Sabine, came here to Scarborough every year

for ten years before ever setting eyes on their hero, Alan Ayckbourn.

And then, one day at the theatre...

-Somebody said, "Hey, Alain Resnais's in tonight.".

-Here in Scarborough?

Yeah! And we were doing a play called Revengers' Comedies.

And I said, "Oh, yeah, great. And Jean-Luc Godard's in the gents(!)"

And I said, "Well..." And he said, "No, I know what he looks like!"

I went out and there was this massively tall man

with this white mane, who looked so out of place.

And on his arm was the most drop-dead gorgeous woman I've ever seen.

I thought, "That has to be Alain Resnais!"

I thought, "This is surreal!"

And, um, so...

He kept coming back and then he asked if he could make a film of mine,

and then he said, "Sabine and I want to get married,

"and we'd like to get married in Scarborough,

"because this is where..."

This gets more and more bizarre!

So he asked if Heather, my wife, and I would be witnesses.

And I said we would be absolutely honoured.

So, anyway, we went and witnessed their wedding

and then we took them out to dinner.

And I said to Sabine, "This is amazing, it's so nice.

"This is your wedding night

"and we haven't given you a proper present. What would you like most?"

And she said, "I would love to be in a play of yours in Scarborough."

And suddenly, there I was, sitting on stage,

Alain in the audience with a digital camera,

directing Sabine Azema.

I felt more like Jean-Luc Godard than ever!

But it's not just Alain and Sabine.

All the world, it seems, loves Alan Ayckbourn.

The Poles.

The Finns.

The Italians.

The Germans.

The Japanese.

The Swedes.

The Czechs.

Alan Ayckbourn is quite simply the most popular living playwright in the world today.

Except, possibly, that is, in Brazil,

one of the world's fastest-growing economies.

But now, the Brazilians too are rapidly getting in on the act.

Actor and director Eduardo Muniz has been here in Scarborough for months,

following the rehearsals of Neighbourhood Watch.

Anorexic teenage girls who just slip out and walk away, laughing, calm as you like.

Makes a mockery of justice.

When you look at those characters on the stage,

-do you recognise those people in Alan Ayckbourn plays?

-Easily. Easily. Easily.

Every one of them, we can recognise, cos it's so well-written.

It's very human nature.

So it doesn't matter if it's in Africa or America or here, or China.

I think his work is worldwide.

You can do this in every corner of the world, I think.

And why not in Brazil?

THEY SPEAK PORTUGUESE

Just a few weeks after returning from Scarborough,

and Eduardo is already in rehearsal with his Portuguese

translation of Neighbourhood Watch.

The reading will form part of the second annual Ayckbourn week

here in Sao Paulo.

And, this year, Ayckbourn's 61st play, Snake In The Grass,

has been touring venues throughout the city.

THEY SPEAK PORTUGUESE

APPLAUSE

I feel very strongly about people

whose work that is considered populist

is then not considered...

-Serious.

-Serious. And of worth.

And I don't know, but I suspect

because he has been very prolific,

somehow that kind of diminishes his stock as a serious writer.

Alan Ayckbourn is one of our greatest writers of all time.

In fact, I think it was in the New York Times

when The Norman Conquests went over.

It said there are three great writers - Shakespeare, Chekhov

and Ayckbourn.

And that was the company he was keeping in this man's eyes.

At the end of this month, Neighbourhood Watch will transfer

with the original Scarborough cast to a theatre off-Broadway.

It will be directed by the author.

'Prolific as ever, nothing it seems will stop Alan Ayckbourn,

'not even the stroke which he suffered in 2006.'

What went through your mind when that happened, about your work?

Well, I was shocked, really.

One always thinks one is immortal until something like that happens.

I was lying in the hospital, I was there for eight weeks,

and I was sort of slowly,

as the panic went down, I was thinking, "At least I can direct.

"But I don't quite know whether the writing thing will come back.

"I think as soon as I'm reasonably mobile

"I can certainly re-tackle the body of work."

And then mysteriously a little trickle of an idea,

I always start with these little flickers.

I thought, "Oh, God, there is a tomorrow!"

Good evening.

This one's opening and there's a new one coming.

That's probably what keeps me going.

Just the excitement of this opening.

And then I need a new excitement,

like a sort of mad literary mountaineer,

I just need another peak to climb.

Martin, wake up! Oh, no, these lights aren't working,

I don't know what's happened to the lights!

-Martin! Martin, wake up.

-We can talk about it!

-Martin, it's me.

-Next door's on fire.

-Next door? The house?

-Next door's on fire!

It's on fire, it's on fire! I saw it from the window!

-Yes, we know it is, Magda, dear.

-Oh, it's well alight, it's blazing away.

What are we going to do, what are we going to do?!

They seem to be tackling it.

But will it spread to us? We don't know if it's going to spread!

-It might.

-What are we going to do?!

-Do be quiet, Martin's trying to think!

-All right there?

Carefully!

Oh.

Woo!

This is the police.

You are ordered to throw down your weapon

and step outside with your hands raised.

-Oh, heavens! It's the police.

-I know it is, Hilda, I can hear.

-What are you going to do?

-I'll do as they say.

This is an official police warning.

You are ordered to throw down your weapon

and to step outside with your hands raised.

-They think I've got a weapon.

-Tell them you haven't got one.

I haven't got a weapon!

-This is not a weapon, it's Jesus!

-This is your final warning.

Throw your weapon on the ground now

and proceed outside with your hands in the air.

I said I haven't got a weapon.

I can't throw this on the ground, it'll break - see. It's Jesus.

See, look, see. Can you see? It's Jesus. See, it's Jesus.

GUNSHOT

Oh!

Martin!

Oh, Jesus!

APPLAUSE

Neighbourhood Watch opened to outstanding reviews.

It has embarked on a national tour, to be followed by a New York run.

No doubt it will then make its way

to countless theatres across the globe.

I think Alan Ayckbourn is Scarborough's gift to the world.

BELL RINGS

The hanging of the programme!

CHEERING

The 300th new play and Alan's 75th.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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