In the run-up to Alan Ayckbourn's 75th birthday in April 2014, a monthly feature reproduces articles by the playwright highlighting his life in theatre through the years.
Last month we looked at Alan Ayckbourn's thoughts on his first production as a professional director in 1961. This month we move forward to 1962 and 1963 and what would turn out to be a pivotal time in Alan Ayckbourn's career - although at the time it looked as though his path was not in theatre. In 1962, Alan helped found the Victoria Theatre in Stoke-on-Trent and the following year wrote Mr Whatnot, his first play to transfer to the West End and very nearly his last. Here Alan discusses both Mr Whatnot and the Victoria Theatre.
Mr Whatnot was first produced in Stoke-on-Trent at the Victoria Theatre in 1963. I had been working there for over a year since the theatre first opened in 1962.
Before the Victoria opened, we used to tour from Scarborough to Newcastle-under-Lyme - a stone’s throw from Stoke. While we were there Stephen Joseph began, as he always did, to investigate the possibility of a permanent home. The town council did actually agree to build him a purpose-built theatre, but that fell through, and instead he found the derelict Victoria Cinema at Stoke, which he designed and converted with next-to-no money into an in-the-round space.
Stephen promptly went off to Manchester University to teach though and left the Victoria Theatre in the hands of Peter Cheeseman and he and I shared most of the directing in the first year. He was also the Theatre Manager - really the Artistic Director - and I was actor, director and writer! It was exhausting and I only lasted two years!
By the second year, I remember I didn’t have any money and, at one point, was sharing the same cheese roll as Peter (who didn’t have any money either)! In fact, we were a whole gang of rather shabby characters, most of whom had been working together for about eighteen months - a rather long period for any company outside the National Theatre or Royal Shakespeare Company.
Being, as it were, company playwright, the time seemed ripe to create a vehicle which might best express the personality of the group. We’d already nearly massacred a couple of shows trying to project some sort of group image and it seemed a far better plan to work on something specially constructed to foster this.
Mr Whatnot, more or less, sprang out of ideas we’d already been exploring, purely intended for fun and to reduce the theatre sound man to nervous hysteria.
Following a fair success at Stoke, the producer Peter Bridge picked it up for the West End and I left the Victoria Theatre to go to London because everyone was telling me this is it, Mr. Whatnot will be a huge success. The play received an ornate, rather glittery production in the West End and was universally hated by every newspaper except The Scotsman. It was an absolute disaster, only ran for three weeks and closed to very hostile reviews.
I vowed I wasn't going to write anymore - wasn’t going to go back into theatre - and this was the end! An offer came to join the BBC as a Radio Drama Producer in Leeds and I went there for five years, never intending to write for theatre again.
Of course, I did.
Copyright: Alan Ayckbourn. Please do not reproduce this article without permission of the copyright holder.
