The cast of Absurd Person Singular
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Review Round-up: Ayckbourn's Absurd Comeback

The work of Alan Ayckbourn returned to the West End last night (11 December 2007, previews from 27 November) care of an all-star revival of his 1972 comedy Absurd Person Singular, which is booking for a limited season at the Garrick Theatre (See News, 6 Nov 2007). This new production is the first Ayckbourn in the West End since the start of the playwright’s self-imposed moratorium in 2002.

Absurd Person Singular visits three couples in their three kitchens on the Christmas Eves of three successive years: the lower-class Hopcrofts; their bank manager and his wife; and their architect neighbour with a suicidal wife. The Hopcrofts’ advance and the other couples’ decline are played out against a series of behind-the-scenes Christmas party disasters.

The three couples are played by David Bamber, Jane Horrocks, John Gordon Sinclair, Lia Williams, David Horovitch and Jenny Seagrove. The production is directed by Alan Strachan, designed by Michael Pavelka and presented by Bill Kenwright Ltd. One of the most prolific playwrights in British history, Alan Ayckbourn has written more than 70 plays, most of them premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre where he was artistic director for 36 years. He stepped down earlier this year, following a debilitating stroke (See News, 4 Jun 2007).

His West End comeback with this revival of Absurd Person Singular drew “seriously pleasurable” cries from first-night critics. In Alan Strachan’s “niftily directed” and “strongly cast, finely acted production”, critics were particularly impressed by the female leads: Lia Williams’ “freaky” Eva, Jenny Seagrove’s “brilliant” and “poignant” Marian, and Jane Horrocks’ “blissful” and “amusing” Jane. While remaining “knock-dead funny”, Ayckbourn’s ability to deal simultaneously with serious subjects of class and “casual callousness” and thereby convey a “dark” and “deeply poignant” message was well appreciated. “A glorious period treat” all round!

Benedict Nightingale in The Times (four stars) “Last night I sensed an almost masochistic glee in Ayckbourn’s determination to set himself scary technical and emotional tests – and I felt he’d passed them all … It’s dark, it’s hilarious and, in Alan Strachan’s strongly cast, finely acted production, it is often both at once … Each character is nicely delineated and each evolves during the play, Seagrove from arrogant assurance to drunken chaos, Williams through desperation to a new strength, and, most importantly, Sidney from hand-wringing insecurity to confidence and power. And somewhere here is Ayckbourn’s point. The nobs decline. So does the bohemian Geoffrey, an architect whose latest building collapses. This little world ends up belonging to Sidney, the property developer, with his philosophy of dog-eat-dog … Has Ayckbourn ever written about class divisions, casual callousness and his other pet topics with such incisive humour? I don’t think so.”

- by Tom Atkins

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