Advocates: Matt Wolf
Matt Wolf is a journalist and theatre critic who has worked for the New York Times and The Guardian amongst many other publications.Quotes
"If you see a play like How The Other Half Loves it’s astonishing just how painful - deeply painful - most of that play is. You find yourself laughing through absolutely clenched teeth. The flip side of that is everyone talks about how much darker the plays are now becoming. I think what is often is overlooked is that they are still hilarious. The very opening scene of A Small Family Business is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in my six years here. So I think it’s important to say he’s always interested in juggling those two balls. And he does, after all, want to entertain. He’s not polemicist and he’s not didactic. He wants to give you one entertaining evening."(1989)
"I think A Small Family Business is probably the best play yet written about Thatcherism. Interestingly, as far as I remember, it mentions Mrs Thatcher not at all. But - of course - her ethos is everywhere within the play. Whereas, other playwrights would be naming name sand scoring points, Alan Ayckbourn doesn’t feel the need to do that and I feel the plays are richer for it."
(1989)
Copyright: Matt Wolf. All research for this page by Simon Murgatroyd, please credit this website if reproduced.