Janie Dee Does Acykbourn Again in West End???

If the Old Vic’s revival of The Norman Conquests has whet your appetite for Alan Ayckbourn, you’ll be happy to hear the West End could soon have another helping of the prolific playwright’s work. We hear that Ayckbourn’s own revival of his 1985 black comedy Woman in Mind, starring Janie Dee, which has just this past weekend finished a limited run at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre as part of the author’s farewell season as the theatre’s artistic director (See News, 10 Jul 2008)
, may be heading south.

Janie Dee had arguably the biggest hit of her career with her 1999 performance as an android in Ayckbourn’s Comic Potential, which earned her Best Actress trophies at the Evening Standard, Critics’ Circle and Laurence Olivier Awards. That production, which Ayckbourn also directed, opened first in Scarborough before transferring to the West End.

In Woman in Mind, forty-something Susan is starved of affection by her vicar husband and distant son. After an accident with a rake, Susan is confronted with not just her real family but also an imaginary one that’s far more devoted.