Comic Potential - A Play (French's Acting Editions) - Softcover

Ayckbourn, Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0573110611 ISBN 13: 9780573110610

Publisher: Samuel French, 2006

Synopsis

A hilarious satire of television and a touching romantic comedy, it begins in a television studio where a hospital soap opera is being taped. One actor starts speaking gibberish; he is an "actoid" a robot and his programming is off kilter. Adam, the young nephew of the producer and an aspiring writer who worships the director (once a great movie director and now a broken down has been), is on the set. Adam starts chatting with Jacie Tripplethree, the actoid (serial number JC333) playing the nurse and finds, to his surprise, that not only can she carry on a conversation but, due to what she calls a fault in her programming, she has a creative imagination. Adam wants to build a new television series around her but the studio will not hear of it. He also finds he is falling in love with the charming robot! Will Adam get the green light on his series? Will love prevail? Jacie is one of Ayckbourn's greatest characters; her portrayer won all of London's major acting awards.

About this title

About the Author

Born in London in 1939, Alan Ayckbourn spent most of his childhood in Sussex and was educated at Haileybury. Leaving there one Friday at the age of seventeen, he went into the theatre the following Monday and has been working in it ever since as, variously, a stage manager, sound technician, scene painter, prop-maker, actor, writer and director. These last two talents he developed thanks to his mentor, Stephen Joseph, whom he first met in 1958 upon joining his newly formed Studio Theatre Company in Scarborough. A BBC Radio Drama Producer from 1965 to 1970, upon the death of Stephen Joseph, he returned to Scarborough to become the company's Artistic Director. He holds the post to this day, though the theatre is now named after its founder. He is the author of over fifty plays, most of which received their first performance at this Yorkshire theatre, were he spends the greater part of the year directing other people's work. More than half of his plays have subsequently been produced in the West End, at the Royal National Theatre or at the Royal Shakespeare Company. They have been translated into over thirty languages, are seen on stage and television throughout the world, and have received many national and international awards. Alan Ayckbourn was appointed a CBE in 1987 and in 1997 became to first playwright knighted since Terence Rattigan. He lives in London.

Review

“As with all Ayckbourn's best plays you are watching a comedy-farce and suddenly find that tragedy comes out of the woodwork and grins at you...Like all serious comedies, Comic Potential hurts you with the sheer exuberance of its laughter and liberates you with its seriousness...The master of Scarborough is still on top form.” ―Sunday Times

“He is a profoundly moral writer and . . . has reached a new synthesis between the comic and the serious-the painfully funny . . . We are a fortunate age to have had our own Molière.” ―Sir Peter Hall

About this edition

• Publisher: Samuel French
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0573110611
• ISBN 13: 9780573110610
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 136