Advocates: Eric Thompson (1929 - 1982)
Eric Thompson was a director and actor who worked extensively in theatre and television - he is well known for writing and narrating the English narration for The Magic Roundabout. He worked closely with Alan Ayckbourn in the West End and Broadway during the 1970s, directing hit productions such as Absurd Person Singular and The Norman Conquests.Quotes
"I understand Alan's plays so completely - I'm sure I'm not the only one who does, but I find them terribly easy to do. He says I treat them like Ibsen. That's not true. I just love looking at the things and thinking 'Yes, we'll do that there, and that there.'"(1974)
"Alan loves complication. In How The Other Half Loves it's brilliant the way those two dinner tables come together, and in Absurd Person Singular, he's written the offstage action rather than the onstage action, but this thing of writing three plays about things happening at the same time is like a Chinese puzzle box. When he wrote The Norman Conquests, he had the three plays across the table. Whoever was in one couldn't be in the others at the same time, so he wrote whoever wasn't in that one or that one."
(1974)
Copyright: Eric Thompson. All research for this page by Simon Murgatroyd, please credit this website if reproduced.