The Norman Conquests

Director: Matthew Warchus.
With: Jessica Hynes, Stephen Mangan, Ben Miles.
At: The Old Vic Theatre until December 20

One of the most eagerly awaited productions of the forthcoming London theatre season has to be the Old Vic's revival of Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests. The three plays that make up the trilogy have not been seen in London for more than 30 years. In addition, the original 1974 London production set the seal on Ayckbourn's reputation as a brilliant theatrical innovator and confirmed his growing reputation as the commercial theatre's safest bet. And, for the six actors who formed the first London cast, the success of The Norman Conquests provided the springboard to stardom.

Table Manners, Living Together and Round and Round The Garden were first performed at the Scarborough theatre, which Ayckbourn still runs to this day, in 1972. In writing them, he set himself the delicate task of following three siblings and their various partners through a weekend in three locations in a rambling family house in the country. Matthew Warchus, director of the Old Vic revival, has had to equip himself with a map and a timeline to help him and his cast maintain their bearings through the maze of the weekend and he argues that an audience will be intrigued by the detective work involved in putting all the clues together.

Penelope Wilton, who played Ruth in the first London production, remembers an extreme reaction from one member of the audience towards the end of an all-day Conquests marathon. "We've all heard of the expression 'rolling in the aisles'," she says. "There was a man in the audience who'd obviously been with us since the start of the day. He knew what was coming in the third play because he remembered what he'd heard in the previous two. He started to laugh in anticipation and he was so delighted that he fell out of his seat and was literally rolling down the aisles with laughter," says Wilton.

As Ayckbourn explains, a fondness for setting himself puzzles has been a feature of his work: "I wanted to explore offstage life," he records. "That is, the life of characters immediately before they come on and just after they leave the stage. I was also interested in experimenting with theatrical form. In viewing the same weekend three times and making each play a complete evening in itself, I could also uncover fresh insights and altered perceptions of the characters each time someone sat down to re-see it. I finished two plays in one night, I remember. I doubt that I'll ever do that again."

The Norman of the title is an assistant librarian, a shambolic but ever-hopeful womaniser married to Ruth, a brisk businesswoman who is one of three siblings at the heart of the plays. Her brother Reg is an estate agent whose wife is the domineering Sarah and his sister Annie's role is to look after their ailing but irascible mother, an off-stage but powerful comic presence. Annie has recently had a brief fling with Norman but Tom, the local vet who bumbles and bungles his way in and out of Annie's affections, is also half-heartedly pursuing her.

In the pivotal role of Norman, it was felt that a star name was required and so Tom Courtenay was cast. For the other five roles, they went for actors who, in 1974, had yet to break through to a wider public. Penelope Wilton was joined by Felicity Kendal as Annie and Penelope Keith as Sarah. Joining Courtenay were Mark Kingston as Reg and Michael Gambon as the ineffectual Tom.
Wilton remembers a very happy rehearsal period. "It was very much a bonding experience. We were all about the same age and we all became great friends. I went on to work a lot with Michael Gambon and when The Norman Conquests was done on television, I was asked to play Annie."

The success of the London production of the play did not go unnoticed by television comedy writers and executives. Kendal and Keith were cast in Esmonde and Larbey's sitcom, The Good Life and would go on to further stage and screen achievement. The same writers returned to suburbia in the 1980s with Ever Decreasing Circles, which paired Richard Briers (Reg in the television Norman Conquests) with Penelope Wilton. Mark Kingston would be cast some years later as Frank opposite Julie Walters in the original stage production of Educating Rita and Michael Gambon, who has enjoyed a dazzling career, became one of Ayckbourn's favourite collaborators.

According to Matthew Warchus, Courtenay and Gambon fondly remember The Norman Conquests. "I've worked a lot with them and they're always talking about the plays. There is a particular visual gag in Table Manners that is very simple and yet is absolutely hilarious. Michael laughs uproariously when he refers to it and when we were rehearsing that scene the other day, we were in hysterics as well." Warchus is no slouch when it comes to directing comedy. His recent production of the farce Boeing-Boeing caused plenty of mirth in the West End and on Broadway he's just directed Ralph Fiennes in Yasmina Reza's The God of Carnage, which had audiences at the Gielgud Theatre rocking with laughter.

"If you do an Ayckbourn play in theatre-in-the-round, all you need is an armchair and a packet of Corn Flakes and the set becomes an island of abstraction," says Warchus. "You see Ayckbourn's characters, who appear to be ordinary, average people and behind them you see their real-life counterparts in the audience. In round, you feel as if you're eavesdropping on their private conversations, spying on their secrets." He continues: "Ayckbourn appears to be part of the mainstream and his plays seem to work on sitcom conventions. Yet the more you explore the plays, the darker and more daring they become. If anything, they operate on territory mapped out by Harold Pinter, Edward Albee and Mike Leigh."

For the Old Vic production, Warchus has put together a cast that includes Jessica Hynes nee Stevenson (Spaced), Stephen Mangan from Channel 4's Green Wing and Ben Miles from BBC2's Coupling. Miles says he is well aware of the level of expectation that the production is causing. "Does The Norman Conquests represent Ayckbourn's masterpiece? His writing is always of such a high standard that you couldn't argue that it is better than the other plays on the basis of the writing alone. I hope the people who missed the plays first time around or who have a preconception about Ayckbourn will be both surprised and impressed with what they see. Is The Norman Conquests a theatrical masterpiece? I hope to find out that it is."

Al Senter