In The Crafty Art of Playmaking, this seminal guide from renowned playwright Alan Ayckbourn shares his tricks of the trade. From helpful hints on writing to tips on directing, this book provides a complete primer for the newcomer and a refresher for those with more experience. Written in Ayckbourn's signature style that combines humor, seriousness, and a heady air of sophistication, The Crafty Art of Playmaking is a must-have for aspiring playwrights, students of drama, and anyone who has ever laughed their way through one of Ayckbourn's plays.

Jack McCraken has the opportunity of a lifetime: he is the new head of a family furniture business and believes he will initiate a new age of honesty and integrity. He quickly learns that everyone else involved in the enterprise has a vested interest in maintaining business as usual, rife with dishonesty and deceit "--

This intricate time traveling comic thriller by the British master of farcical comedy delighted London and New York audiences. A London sex specialist from the future stumbles into a murder plot that sends her, compliments of a unique set of hotel doors, traveling back in time. She and two women who were murdered in 1998 and 1978 race back and forth in time trying to rewrite history and prevent their own violent ends. The frantic race begins when Poopay is hired for an evening at the Regal Hotel by an old man who eschews a fling in favor of confessing his role in the demise of his wives. Now a target, Poopay flees into the vestibule and somehow triggers the time machine. -- Publisher's website.

For the first time, Alan Ayckbourn shares all of his tricks of the playwright's trade. From helpful hints on writing to tips on directing, the book provides a complete primer for the newcomer and a refresher for the more experienced. Written in Ayckbourn's signature style that combines humor, seriousness, and heady air of theatrical sophistication that Noel Coward would envy, The Crafty Art of Playmaking is a must-have for aspiring playwrights and students of drama.

A play set in the foreseeable future when everything has changed except human nature; a future where TV daytime soaps are performed by android actors emotionally programmed by the control room. One, JC 31333, finds herself humanized as Jacie Triplethree, complete with a sense of humour and Adam, a young scriptwriter, falls for her.

The central character of Alan Ayckbourn's new play is Susan, a parson's wife, 'one of the most moving and devastating that he has created...' Robin Thornber reviewing the first production in Scarborough in the Guardian.

The play opens in the flat of Greg and Ginny, a young co-habiting couple, Ginny being the more sexually experienced. Greg finds a strange pair of slippers under the bed and is too besotted to believe they might have been left by another man (which would also explain the bunches of flowers and boxes of sweets filling Ginny's apartment). Ginny goes off for a day in the country, supposedly to visit her parents but actually to break things off with her older married lover, Philip. Greg decides to follow her. The next scene is on the patio at the home of Philip and his befuddled wife Sheila, whose marriage is clearly under strain. Greg shows up unannounced before Ginny, and wrongly assumes that they are her parents. Greg asks for her hand from Philip, while Philip mistakenly believes that the strange young man is asking permission to marry Sheila. Once Ginny arrives, she convinces Philip to play the role of her father. Meanwhile, Greg still believes that Sheila is Ginny's mother. The situation becomes increasingly complicated and hilarious.