Wildest Dreams: Frequently Asked Questions
Alan Ayckbourn's Archivist Simon Murgatroyd's answers some of the most frequently asked questions about Alan Ayckbourn's Wildest Dreams. If you have a question about this or any other of Alan Ayckbourn's plays, you can contact the website via the Contact Us page.What led Wildest Dreams to being staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company?
Wildest Dreams is, at the time of writing, the only Alan Ayckbourn play to have been staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The reason this came to pass was that Alan's then agent Tom Erhardt was having lunch with the RSC's Artistic Director Adrian Noble in 1991 about other plays and playwrights. At the end of the meal, Tom subtly mentioned Alan's play, Wildest Dreams, and how its content probably made it an ideal fit for the RSC and he just happened to have a copy of the script with him. Adrian Noble took the script, liked it and decided the RSC should produce Wildest Dreams.
When should Wildest Dreams be set for production purposes?
Alan Ayckbourn firmly believes the majority of his plays are period pieces and should be performed in the period from when they were written - in the case of Wildest Dreams, the early 1990s. The playwright firmly believes his plays reflect the attitudes and society of the period they were written in and do no benefit from attempts to take them out of the period and update them; particularly as changes in society - particularly technological - render the plays implausible if updated to the present day.
All research for this page by Simon Murgatroyd. Please do not reproduce without crediting the author and the website.