Improbable Fiction
| Improbable Fiction | |||
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| Written by | Alan Ayckbourn | ||
| Characters | Arnold Grace Jess Vivi Brevis Clem Ilsa |
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| Date premiered | 31 May 2005 | ||
| Place premiered | Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough | ||
| Original language | English | ||
| Subject | Writers' imaginations | ||
| Genre | Comedy | ||
| Setting | Writers' circle meeting in Arnold's living room | ||
| Official site | |||
| Ayckbourn chronology | |||
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Improbable Fiction is a 2005 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It is about a writers' circle, on the night the chairman, Arnold, seems to wander into the imaginations of the other writers.
Part of the inspiration for Improbable Fiction was reported to be a talk that Alan Ayckbourn once gave to a writers' circle, which he suspected was actually more of a social circle. The title was inspired by a quote from William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night:
"If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as improbable fiction." – Twelfth Night, Act III, scene 4
If the immediately preceding adult play, Private Fears in Public Places was notable for being the bleakest Ayckbourn play for many years, Improbable Fiction was notable for being the lightest, because in the few years previously, even the comedies had serious themes to them. It has been observed that this play has similarities with Ayckbourn's earlier family plays The Boy Who Fell into a Book and, to a lesser extent, My Very Own Story. Whether there was an intentional adaptation of these plays is unclear, but this was repeated the following year with If I Were You (argued to be derived from The Jollies).
Whatever the reason for such a light play, it fitted in with the Stephen Joseph Theatre's 50th anniversary season, along with a revival of another Ayckbourn comedy, Time and Time Again.
There are seven characters in the play. They are:
In the second act, all the characters start playing various parts from various stories, apart from a confused Arnold who carries on being himself, whatever role is thrust on him by the story.
In contrast to Private Fears in Public Places and its 54 mini-scenes, Improbable Fiction used the single set of the living room in Arnold's house throughout the play, and one continuous scene, broken only by the interval. The first act almost entirely takes place during the Writers' Circle meeting. In the second act, however, the same room represents various houses in various stories in Victorian times, the 1930s, and the present day, with no set change other than changing the type of phone present on the dresser.
The play was performed in-the-round for its original run at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in 2005. In the 2006 tour, it was adapted for the proscenium.
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Wikipedia