Criticism > Drama Criticism > Ayckbourn, Alan - J. W. Lambert, E. Shorter, R. Craig, J. Peter (essay date 1973)
Ayckbourn, Alan - J. W. Lambert, E. Shorter, R. Craig, J. Peter (essay date 1973)
J. W. Lambert, E. Shorter, R. Craig, J. Peter (essay date 1973)
SOURCE: “Plays in Performance,” in Drama, London No. 110, Autumn, 1973, pp. 17-29.
[In the following excerpt, the authors discuss trends and review plays in London theater.]
Time to sober up, to return to the straight, though luckily not the strait, and still less narrow, theatre. In particular to the commercial (or as it would prefer independent) theatre, which has produced a by no means contemptible clutch of comedies. Unquestionably first among them is Alan Ayckbourn's tongue-twistingly titled Absurd Person Singular (Criterion). Those of us who have managed ever since Relatively Speaking to enjoy Mr. Ayckbourn's plays without condescension must observe with rueful amusement his gradual promotion by the beau monde into what in fact he always was, something more than a deft contriver of after-dinner amusement; after all, How the Other Half...
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- Introduction
- Principal Works
- Criticism: Author Commentary
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Criticism: Overviews And General Studies
- John Russell Taylor (essay date 1971)
- J. W. Lambert, E. Shorter, R. Craig, J. Peter (essay date 1973)
- John Russell Taylor (essay date 1981)
- Elmer M. Blistein (essay date 1983)
- Malcom Page (essay date 1983)
- Richard Allen Cave (essay date 1987)
- Thomas M. Disch (essay date 1991)
- George Weales (essay date 1991)
- Richard Hornby (essay date 1992)
- Hugh Rorrison (essay date 1994)
- Criticism: Absurd Person Singular
- Criticism: Absent Friends
- Criticism: A Small Family Business
- Criticism: The Revengers' Comedies
- Criticism: Time Of My Life
- Further Reading
- Copyright
