Way Upstream

Synopsis

On a river boat, cruising somewhere in the English countryside, Keith, June, Alistair and Emma are messing about on the water. But what begins as a pleasant holiday afloat may be about to run aground! A hit when it was first presented by Alan Ayckbourn in 1981 and again at the Royal National Theatre the following year.

Our Review:

24 October 2003

Of Way Upstream, first seen in Scarborough in 1981, Alan Ayckbourn has said: "It was an attempt to get away from what I had been writing. It's an adventure story. I was beginning to be of the opinion that the theatre's salvation lies in a move away from the over-emphasis on the verbal, back towards the visual."

At the National, it was also famously almost a move into the soggily tactile, for this is the play which involves flooding the stage and putting a mobile cabin cruiser on it. Scarborough, being a coastal town, has some knowledge of the vagaries of water and coped perfectly - as it does again. The National sprang leaks and all but disappeared into the Thames.

Business partners Keith and Alistair, with their less-than-enthusiastic wives, set out for seven days' cruising up the River Orb (get it?) to Armageddon Bridge (get it?), leaving behind them their factory gripped by industrial strife. At stopping points along the way - this bein...

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Latest User Review

USER: Whatsonstage.com (217.137.154.29) - 25 October 2003:

Worth seeing for the set alone which is astounding. But when you add a flawlessly assembled cast and Ayckbourns sure direction this makes one hell of a classy evening. Shows every indictation of being a complete sell out at the box office....

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