A SINGULAR ACHIEVEMENT
Sir Alan Ayckbourn’s festive comic masterpiece Absurd Person Singular is heading to the New Vic theatre this month...
CHRISTMAS is coming early to the New Vic this year as London Classic Theatre visit with a festive Alan Ayckbourn play, Absurd Person Singular, to celebrate their 20th anniversary.
Set in 1970s suburbia, and following three married couples as they try to one-up each other over the course of three Christmases, Absurd Person Singular will be performed at the New Vic Theatre in Basford from October 20 to 23.
Sidney Hopcroft, a small-time tradesman, persuades wife Jane to throw a Christmas party hoping to find favour with a bank manager and local architect. As the celebrations get under way, class differences and naked ambition combine to hilarious effect as, one by one, the characters seek refuge in Jane’s kitchen.
Over the next two years, the Jacksons and Brewster-wrights take turns to host festivities. But Sidney’s star has begun to rise and roles are increasingly reversed as the cracks in the other couples’ marriages begin to show.
After the tour was originally postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, London Classic Theatre’s Artistic Director Michael Cabot says he is ‘tremendously excited’ to finally bring this production – about class and social mobility, making the right impression and keeping up appearances – to the stage again.
He said: “To finally be in front of an audience will be fantastic. All of the original company have come back to reprise their roles and it’s been quite emotional seeing the team back together again. We didn’t know how easy it would be to re-create the show after such a long time away, but everyone has worked really hard and it feels like everything has slotted into place remarkably quickly.”
Olivier and Tony Award winning Ayckbourn is well-known for penning much-loved plays including Relatively Speaking, Bedroom Farce and A Chorus of Disapproval. His witty writing comes to life in this comic masterpiece, which fuses a potent mix of farce and black comedy.
Michael said: “Great writing is timeless and Alan Ayckbourn, below, is such a unique playwright. The play comes from the early 70s, so it’s almost 50 years since it was first produced, but the themes and characters are still incredibly fresh for an audience today. In true Ayckbourn style, Alan isn’t afraid to take the action into some fairly dark places. He twists the knife again and again, exposing the characters’ vanity and their weaknesses, so it can be both excruciating and excruciatingly funny.
“It’s a brilliant character study as much as anything else. Superficially, it’s a play about an ambitious tradesman who tries to impress his bank manager and a local architect.
“He holds them in very high esteem, puts them on a pedestal really, so it’s fascinating to watch as the months pass and roles are reversed. We see that the higher status characters aren’t quite so impressive as we first thought. Watching everything unravel, in true farcical fashion, is very funny.”
London Classic Theatre has visited the New Vic previously with productions including My Mother Said I Never Should, Hysteria and No Man’s Land, so fans of classic theatre can be sure of a great night out with their latest production.
Michael added: “This is classic Alan Ayckbourn, classic British comedy of embarrassment. It treads a beautiful line between comedy and tragedy, and there is no better playwright to exploit this to its full potential. Ayckbourn is our finest living playwright, a genuine national treasure, so what better excuse to return to the theatre do you need?”