In 1957, Ayckbourn married Christine Roland, another member of the Library Theatre company, and indeed Ayckbourn's first two plays were written jointly with her under the pseudonym of " Roland Allen ".

* Bedroom Farce ( Alan Ayckbourn Originally produced by the National Theatre ) 29 March 1979-24 November 1979

The Alan Ayckbourn play Woman in Mind received its American premiere Off-Broadway in February 1988 at the Manhattan Theatre Club.

Among these were House and Garden, a 2002 Alan Ayckbourn production held at the Manhattan Theatre Club, in which she portrayed a disdainful, flirtatious teen.

* The Revengers ' Comedies by Alan Ayckbourn, Stephen Joseph Theatre, ( 1989 )

* Taking Steps-Revival by Alan Ayckbourn, Stephen Joseph Theatre, ( 1990 )

* Invisible Friends by Alan Ayckbourn, Cottlesloe Theatre, National Theatre, ( 1991 )

Directed by Ayckbourn, the cast featured Scherer ( Bertie ) and Martin Jarvis ( Jeeves ) ( who received the Theatre World Award ).

The London première was at the proscenium Lyttelton Theatre on 4 October 1982, with Ayckbourn again directing.

* The Revengers Comedies, at the Strand Theatre, written and directed by Sir Alan Ayckbourn

* Bedroom Farce, Aldwych Theatre, written by Ayckbourn and directed by Loveday Ingram

In the summer of 2008, he played in repertory in Scarborough, North Yorkshire at the Stephen Joseph Theatre under the artistic direction of Alan Ayckbourn.

Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE ( born 12 April 1939 ) is a prolific English playwright.

It is said that Joseph became both a mentor and father figure for Ayckbourn until his untimely death in 1967, and he has consistently spoken highly of him.

One side-effect of the timing is that, as Alan was awarded a knighthood a few months before the divorce, both his first and second wife are entitled to take the title of Lady Ayckbourn.

It has been suggested that, after Ayckbourn himself, the person who is used the most in his plays is his mother, particularly as Susan in Woman in Mind ( 1985 ).

In Paul Allen ’ s biography, Ayckbourn is briefly compared to Dafydd and Guy in A Chorus of Disapproval ( 1984 ).

But again, it is unclear whether this had any effect on the writing, and Paul Allen's view is that it is not current experience that Ayckbourn uses for his plays.

It could be that Ayckbourn had written plays with himself and his own issues in mind, but as Ayckbourn is portrayed as a guarded and private man, it is hard to imagine him exposing his own life in his plays to any great degree.

Gambon is a very private person, a " non-starry star " as Ayckbourn called him.

* In 1984 in the play ( and later film ) A Chorus of Disapproval by Alan Ayckbourn, an amateur production of The Beggar's Opera is a major plot driver and excerpts are performed.

Dramatist Alan Ayckbourn is based in Scarborough where he has lived for a number of years.

* 1990 – Man of the Moment by Alan Ayckbourn and Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell by Keith Waterhouse

By Jeeves, originally Jeeves, is a 1975 / 1996 musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alan Ayckbourn, based on the novels of P. G. Wodehouse.

Way Upstream is a play by Alan Ayckbourn.

Important modern playwrights include Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Alan Ayckbourn, John Osborne, Michael Frayn and Arnold Wesker.

Ayckbourn, however, continues to write and direct his own work at the theatre.

The theatre has presented several Alan Ayckbourn premieres, including 1990's Man of the Moment.

premieres held at the theatre include < i > The Westwoods </ i > by Alan Ayckbourn, < i > Between The Lines </ i > by Paul Todd and < i > Blue Jam </ i > by Chris Morris.

Ayckbourn was born in Hampstead, London.

His father, Horace Ayckbourn, was an orchestral violinist, at one time deputy leader of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Ayckbourn wrote his first play at Wisborough Lodge ( a preparatory school in the village of Wisborough Green ) when he was about 10.

Ayckbourn attended Haileybury, in the village of Hertford Heath, and while there toured Europe and America with the school's Shakespeare company.

Although Ayckbourn continued to move where his career took him, he settled in Scarborough, eventually buying Longwestgate House, the house formerly owned by Stephen Joseph.

Alan Ayckbourn said that his relationship with Christine became easy once they agreed their marriage was over.

Like his mother, neither he nor Christine sought a divorce for the next thirty years and it was only in 1997 that they formally divorced ; Ayckbourn married Heather Stoney.

Ayckbourn has frequently said he sees aspects of himself in all his characters.

Both characters feel themselves in trouble, and there was speculation that Alan Ayckbourn himself may have felt himself to be in trouble.

After an excursion into the world of comic-books and cartoons ( another of Resnais's enthusiasms ) in I Want to Go Home ( 1989 ), an ambitious theatrical adaptation followed with the diptych of Smoking / No Smoking ( 1993 ): Resnais, having admired the plays of Alan Ayckbourn for many years, chose to adapt what appeared the most intractable of them, Intimate Exchanges, a series of eight interlinked plays which follow the consequences of a casual choice to sixteen possible endings.

In addition to his many Shakespearean roles ( Jaques in As You Like It, Cassius in Julius Caesar, Polonius in Hamlet, Malvolio in Twelfth Night ), Hordern performed in plays by Strindberg, Chekhov, Ibsen, Pinero, Pinter, Dürrenmatt, Albee, Alan Ayckbourn, David Mercer and Tom Stoppard.

In the Plays and Players Yearbook for 1993 he was calculated as the third most performed playwright in the UK behind William Shakespeare and Alan Ayckbourn.

A 1993 survey for ' Plays and Players ' magazine cited Godber as the third most performed playwright in the UK, after Shakespeare and Alan Ayckbourn. In 2005 won 2 BAFTAs for ' Odd Squad ', written and directed on location in Hull and screened by BBC children's television.