Alan Ayckbourn is the author of 70 full-length plays of which roughly half have been national and international successes, translated into more than 30 languages; five ran simultaneously in London’s West End and four simultaneously on Broadway, an unmatched record. He is thus the most popular of a generation of British playwrights who have chosen to deal with serious issues largely through comedy.

Alan Ayckbourn was born in Hampstead, London, a few months before the outbreak of World War II. His father was a prominent violinist and his mother a novelist and short story-writer. Unusually for the period, even for the more Bohemian classes, they never married, though Ayckbourn was unaware of this until his fifties. The relationsh

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First published 23 February 2006

Citation: Allen, Paul. "Alan Ayckbourn". The Literary Encyclopedia. 23 February 2006.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=197, accessed 20 November 2009.]