Alan lines up favourite actors for newest play
Casting has been announced for Sir Alan Ayckbourn’s latest play Family Album at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre, which opens next month. Elizabeth Boag, Georgia Burnell, Tanya-Loretta Dee, Antony Eden and Frances Marshall will be directed by the author in his new play which chronicles the trials, tribulations and temptations of three generations of one family across 70 years in the same home.
A moving-in day, 1952. A birthday party, 1992. A movingout day, 2022.
Join housewife Peggy, Georgia Burnell, and RAF veteran John, Antony Ede, as they proudly move into the first home they can really call their own; daughter Sandra, Frances
Marshall, frantically negotiating the challenges of a 10-yearold’s birthday party without her AWOL husband; and granddaughter Alison, Elizabeth Boag, and her partner Jess, Tanya-Loretta Dee, finally escaping the house she has somewhat unwillingly inherited.
Alan Ayckbourn said: “My inspiration for Family Album was a programme on BBC4 called A House Through Time, a fascinating piece of social history. I thought, I could do this on a smaller scale – I didn’t want to go back centuries, so I started within my lifetime, in the 1950s.
“So we have three time periods layered on top of each other happening simultaneously in the same house, following a family from the grandparents in 1952, to the children in 1992 and then the grandchildren today.
“For me it’s new: I’ve used time so much – I’ve run it backwards and forwards, and I’ve run it sideways, and I’ve occasionally run it forwards and backwards simultaneously and at different speeds, but never in this way.”
Family Album is designed by Kevin Jenkins with lighting design by Jason Taylor.
Family Album can be seen in the Round at the SJT from Friday September 2 to Saturday October 1. It will then be performed at the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme, from Tuesday October 11 to Saturday October 22, and at The Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness, from Tuesday November 1 to Saturday November 5.
Tickets for the show at the Stephen Joseph, priced from £10, are available from the box office on 01723 370541 and online at www.sjt.uk.com