Time Of My Life: 10 Facts

With Alan Ayckbourn's revival of his 1992 play opening on 6 June, the blog will be taking a weekly look behind the scenes of the play looking at its history.
We begin our exploration of Time Of My Life with 10 facts about the play.

Time Of My Life: 10 Facts
1) Time Of My Life is Alan Ayckbourn's 44th play.
2) The world premiere was held at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round, Scarborough, on 21 April, 1992.
3) The London premiere was held at the Vaudeville Theatre on 3 August 1993.
4) The original London production in 1993 marked the first time (excluding the West End production of Intimate Exchanges - although that only had two actors) that a West End production featured the majority of the cast from the world premiere production in Scarborough. Only the two lead roles were recast and that purely to have recognised 'named actors' on the billboards.
5) The play was inspired by Alan Ayckbourn's experiences observing people at other tables in restaurants and also by J.W. Priestley's 'time' plays.

Alan Ayckbourn and the 2013 Time Of My Life company at the first read-through.
Copyright: James Drawneek

6) The play has three strands to it: the first moves forward in two hours of real time from the play's opening scene; the second moves backwards two months; the third moves forward over two years. This puts the audience in a privileged position of knowing information about the characters they do not yet know.
7) It is one of Alan Ayckbourn's rare plays which is identifiably set in the north of England. Other northern plays include Haunting Julia and A Chorus Of Disapproval (despite the latter being set in the normally Southern fictional town of Pendon).
8) Although not specifically written for the round (unlike Taking Steps), it is a play which Alan Ayckbourn believes is best suited to performance in the round.
9) Time Of My Life is deliberately written so that one actor plays the restauranteur Calvinu as well as his four sons. It reflects Alan Ayckbourn's earlier play A Small Family Business in which one actor played all the Rivetti Brothers.
10) The predominant theme of the play is people tend to spend far more time looking forwards or backwards in their lives and do not tend to recognise the moments of happiness when they occur (the time of our lives) because of this.

Time Of My Life is in repertory at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, from 6 June - 4 October, 2013. Further details about the production, schedule and how to book can be found at www.sjt.uk.com.