Improbable Fiction

By Alan Ayckbourn

Ayckbourn is our most popular dramatist and this play shows why.
It starts as one of the comedy of modern manners that he does so well.
The first act shows a group of writers at one of their regular meetings.
Each of the writers has a particular specialty be it crime, historical romance, science fiction, children’s stories or even musicals.
During the course of a rather shambolic meeting the chairman suggests that they all cooperate on a single project;
an idea that the audience can see is doomed to failure.
After the meeting ends the evening changes.
The stories outlined earlier come to life around the hapless chairman.
He is in turn thrust into the various works as an unwitting participant.

Aykbourn writes brilliantly in the style of each writers’ genre, be it set in Victorian times, the 1930’s or the near future.
Arnold, the unwitting chairman, is caught in strange shifting stories that are incredibly resolved by the end of the play.
He becomes more bemused as parts of an Agatha Christie story clash with one from Wilkie Collins
and are both interspersed by a search for alien life forms from the town hall.

This is a great challenge for a cast of seven who play over twenty parts between them in the course of a beautifully constructed show.