Table Manners

by Alan Ayckbourn

11-14 of November 1998 at The Electric Theatre

TABLE MANNERS is one of “The Norman Conquests”, a trilogy of plays which were the product, according to Ayckbourn himself, of “several days and nights of almost continuous writing” in the spring of 1973.

The three plays were written to recount the events of a single weekend and to be performed on consecutive nights, first showing at the Library Theatre in Scarborough in 1973. Each play is set in a different part of the house; Table Manners in the dining room, Living Together in the living room, and Round and Round the Garden, obviously, in the garden. However, each can be performed independently, and not necessarily as “theatre in the round” pieces as originally intended.

By Ayckbourn’s own admission, Table Manners is the “most overtly funny” of the three plays, though its humour is to a great extent bittersweet. Everyone who has suffered a family Christmas (and here the Director, cast and all the backstage personnel would naturally like to exclude their own families) will recognise the tensions, arguments and hilarity of trying to relate to your relations. We hope that few of you suffer as badly as the characters in this play.

CAST & CREW

CAST

ANNIE, sister of Reg and Ruth – Berry Winter
SARAH, Reg's wife – Cathy Payne
TOM – David Nightingale
REG – Ian Creese
NORMAN, Ruth's husband – David Clegg
RUTH – Justine Bothwick

BEHIND THE SCENES