Grinning At The Edge: A Biography of Alan Ayckbourn

(Paperback)

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Now in paperback, the hugely acclaimed, authorised biography of Britain's most popular playwright Alan Ayckbourn is Britain's most popular playwright and its most private. He has won numerous awards for his plays and has worked with some of theatre's most celebrated names, yet he spends most of his time away from the limelight in a Yorkshire seaside town not writing at all but running a small repertory theatre. This is a portrait of a man who - from Relatively Speaking in 1965 to his double play House and Garden at the National Theatre in 2000 - has chronicled human behaviour, our aspirations and insecurities, while shaping the theatrical experience of millions." Mr Allen's book makes me want to start reading the entire Ayckbourn canon over again splendid stuff" Hugh Leonard, Sunday Independent "Paul Allen has come up with a wise, well-informed book that not only persuades us of Ayckbourn's genius but also helps to explain this complex, driven man" Michael Billington, Country Life "Lucid, meticulously researched this impressively detailed account benefits from Paul Allen's rich inside knowledge of theatre" Terry Eagleton, Times Literary Supplement "Thorough and enjoyable" Christopher Hirst, Independent

Author Bio

Born in Kent, in 1976 Paul Allen was the first regional journalist to be named Critic of the Year in the British Press Awards, for television and radio reviewing. In the 1980s he began a long association with the BBC Radio 4 arts magazine Kaleidoscope. He wrote and presented the Kaleidoscope feature The Leaf and the Fig which won the last BP Arts Journalism Award for radio in 1993. Two dozen of his plays have been produced, on radio and theatres across the country. Most recently his adaptation of Brassed Off opened in Sheffield and subsequently transferred to the National Theatre. He has presented Night Waves on BBC Radio 3 since May 1998. His biography of Alan Ayckbourn, Grinning at the Edge, was published by Methuen Drama in 2001. A Pocket Guide to Alan Ayckbourn's Plays was published in 2004.