Joking Apart: Articles

This section contains articles about Joking Apart by Alan Ayckbourn and other authors. To access the other articles, click on the relevant link in the right-hand column below.

This article was written by Alan Ayckbourn and is drawn from correspondence held in the Ayckbourn Archive. No other details are known.

Notes To Remember

Articles by Alan Ayckbourn

○ Preface to Joking Apart & Other Plays (1979)
○ Joking Apart (2002)
○ Joking Apart (date TBC)
○ A Note From The Author (2018)
○ Notes on Hugh (2013)

Articles by Other Authors

○ Louise (Albert E. Kalson)

The snare of the play, I feel, is to mistake it as being a play about Richard and Anthea when they’re really only the catalysts that spark off the misery in all the others – who are the central characters.

The importance, having said that, is to give Richard and Anthea effortless ease and charm so that we can see why everything’s happened – and how easily people fall under their spell. They’re never really aware of the problems of others. They’re certainly not vindictive. They’re just winners.

That, and making sure Hugh, apart from his outburst under the trees, tries desperately not to reveal his feelings. He suffers in Christian stoic silence. Unlike Sven who moans to the heavens in a most unBritish fashion!

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