Grinning At The Edge: A Biography of Alan Ayckbourn (Biography and Autobiography) - Softcover

Allen, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0413771369 ISBN 13: 9780413771360

Publisher: Methuen Drama, 2002

Synopsis

Now in paperback, the hugely acclaimed, authorised biography of Britain's most popular playwright

Alan Ayckbourn is Britain's most popular playwright and its most private. He has won numerous awards for his plays and has worked with some of theatre's most celebrated names, yet he spends most of his time away from the limelight in a Yorkshire seaside town not writing at all but running a small repertory theatre.

This is a portrait of a man who from Relatively Speaking in 1965 to his double play House and Garden at the National Theatre in 2000 has chronicled human behaviour, our aspirations and insecurities, while shaping the theatrical experience of millions.

"Mr Allen's book makes me want to start reading the entire Ayckbourn canon over again. . .splendid stuff" Hugh Leonard, Sunday Independent

"Paul Allen has come up with a wise, wellinformed book that not only persuades us of Ayckbourn's genius but also helps to explain this complex, driven man" Michael Billington, Country Life

"Lucid, meticulously researched . . . this impressively detailed account benefits from Paul Allen's rich inside knowledge of theatre" Terry Eagleton, Times Literary Supplement

"Thorough and enjoyable" Christopher Hirst, Independent

About this title

Review:

"Using dozens of interviews from all areas of Ayckbourn's life, Allen reveals a complex, brilliant individual who has contributed to the reshaping of British theater .Ayckbourn's personal and professional experiences are interwoven with concurrent develop "Amusing anecdotes."--East Bay Express "Amusing anecdotes." East Bay Express "Paul Allen's biography of Alan Ayckbourn captures both the playwright and his plays....the best overview of a brilliant dramatic career." Magill Book Reviews "Paul Allen has penned an authorized, highly detailed personal and career biography of [Ayckbourn] that will surely be the the last word on the playwright for some time." Publisher's Weekly, April 29, 2002 "Alan is quite simply the most genuine theatrical animal I have ever met." Andrew Lloyd Webber "I am convinced that Alan's plays - along with Harold Pinter's - will be cherished by posterity. Maybe one day there'll be a Royal Ayckbourn Company." Michael Billington "What he has given to the theatre is immeasurable. I take my hat off to him." Harold Pinter "A script arriving from Alan is manna from heaven. All you have to do is learn the text faithfully, follow his punctuation meticulously, and lo and behold you get a reputation as an Ayckbourn actress - and if he's directing, you sometimes win awards too." Julia McKenzie "If, in a hundred years, anyone wants to know what it was like to live in the second half of the 20th century, I am quite sure they will turn to the plays of Alan Ayckbourn before they look at historians or sociologists." Peter Hall

About the Author:

Born in Kent, in 1976 Paul Allen was the first regional journalist to be named Critic of the Year in the British Press Awards, for television and radio reviewing. In the 1980s he began a long association with the BBC Radio 4 arts magazine Kaleidoscope. He wrote and presented the Kaleidoscope feature The Leaf and the Fig which won the last BP Arts Journalism Award for radio in 1993. Two dozen of his plays have been produced, on radio and theatres across the country. Most recently his adaptation of Brassed Off opened in Sheffield and subsequently transferred to the National Theatre. He has presented Night Waves on BBC Radio 3 since May 1998. His biography of Alan Ayckbourn, Grinning at the Edge, was published by Methuen Drama in 2001. A Pocket Guide to Alan Ayckbourn's Plays was published in 2004.

About this edition

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0413771369
• ISBN 13: 9780413771360
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 356