On 17 June 1974, the play was premiered in the playwright's adopted home town of Scarborough and has gone on to become an enduring and significant work in his canon.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary, we've got 40 facts about Absent Friends:
40 Things You Might Not Know About Absent Friends!
1) Absent Friends was written in reaction to the work which preceded it, The Norman Conquests. From a massive trilogy of interwoven plays set over a weekend, Alan went to an intimate 'chamber' piece.
2) It was though inspired by a scene in The Norman Conquests where essentially nothing happens; characters just talk without advancing the plot but where we learn about them and their relationships.
3) Absent Friends is thus a play in which the author admits nothing really happens; it is driven entirely by actions and reactions.
4) Early ideas for the play included setting it around a dinner party where we would see events from a female perspective and then the male perspective before combining the two elements in the final act.
5) Alan Ayckbourn eventually settled on one of the simplest structures of any of his plays: six characters in one room in 2 acts.
6) Unusually, it was inspired by a specific event in Alan Ayckbourn's life in which he attended a tea party for a woman whose husband had died during their honeymoon and who insisted theirs would have been a perfect marriage.
7) It was his first play set in real time; a minute of stage time equals a minute of audience time and the same amount of time passes for both the characters and the audience.
8) Proposed titles for the play included A House Divided
9) and According To Taste...
10) and Dividing Line.
11) Before finally settling on Absent Friends.
12) The playwright recalls he had not written a single word of the play by the Thursday morning before rehearsals were due to start on the Monday morning.
13) The play was written during the Thursday and Friday, typed up and copied on the Saturday before being delivered to the cast on Sunday for rehearsals the following day.
14) Rehearsals began on 27 May 1974 for three weeks.
15) Absent Friends opened at the Library Theatre, Scarborough, on 17 June 1974.
16) It was Alan Ayckbourn's 16th play.
17) The production featured Christopher Godwin as Colin (he also gave the original performances of Leonard in Time & Time Again, Norman in The Norman Conquests and Trevor in Bedroom Farce among others).
18) Heather Stoney, who is now Alan Ayckbourn's wife, played the role of Diana in the original production.
19) The production also featured Janet Dale, Ronald Herdman, Stephen Mallatratt and Eileen O'Brien.
20) Although the play is often described as being about death, the playwright considers it to be more accurately about "the death of love."
21) The play was optioned for the West End by the producer Michael Codron immediately following its world premiere.
22) It opened in London just 13 months later on 23 July 1975 at the Garrick Theatre.
23) It was directed by Eric Thompson, who had previously directed the London acclaimed premieres of Time & Time Again, Absurd Person Singular and The Norman Conquests.
24) It marked the final time Eric Thompson and Alan Ayckbourn would work together following disappointment in Absent Friends and the failure of the musical Jeeves in the same year.
25) The London production featured Richard Briers as Colin; his final appearance in the London premiere of an Ayckbourn play having previously appeared in Relatively Speaking and Absurd Person Singular.
26) The play also featured Peter Bowles as Paul, who would later go on to memorably star as Vic opposite Michael Gambon's Douglas in the West End premiere of Man Of The Moment in 1990.
27) Absent Friends opened in London whilst both Absurd Person Singular and The Norman Conquests were playing, meaning the playwright had a record five plays running simultaneously in London.
28) Absent Friends ran for less than a year in the West End, closing on 24 April 1975, and was deemed an unsatisfactory transfer by the playwright.
29) Peter Hall, Artistic Director of the National Theatre, was a particular fan of Absent Friends and initially hoped it might receive its London premiere at the National. Although this did not happen, it put in motion plans for Alan's National debut with Bedroom Farce in 1977.
30) Absent Friends was first published in 1975 in an acting edition by Samuel French...
31) And was subsequently published in a mass market hardback by Chatto & Windus and paperback by Penguin and Vintage Classics.
32) The BBC adapted it for radio in 1977 - apparently without the permission of the playwright. The result was a truncated sixty minute version starring David Jason and Miriam Margoyles; this has since been withdrawn from broadcast.
33) The recording was released on vinyl though and this is regarded as a genuine - and very rare - Ayckbourn collectible.
34) Far more satisfactory was the BBC's television adaptation in 1985 which featured Tom Courtenay as Colin and Julia McKenzie as Diana.
35) Julia McKenzie's bravura performance was one of the reasons why shortly afterwards, Alan Ayckbourn asked her to play Susan in the West End premiere of Woman in Mind.
36) Absent Friends received its New York premiere on 12 February 1991 at the Manhattan Theatre Club with Brenda Blethyn playing Diana.
37) It ask featured a young unknown actress called Gillian Anderson playing the role of Evelyn. Shortly afterwards she was cast as Agent Dana Scully in the global television hit The X Files.
38) Alan Ayckbourn revived the play in 1997 at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round, again Evelyn's role was taken by a little known actress called Tamzin Outhwaite. Shortly afterwards she was cast in the BBC soap opera EastEnders.
39) Absent Friends was revived to much acclaim in London in 2012 at the Harold Pinter Theatre with Jeremy Herrin directing.
40) Forty years on, Absent Friends remains a play of which Alan Ayckbourn is very fond.
Copyright: Simon Murgatroyd. Please do not reproduce without permission of the copyright holder.
