Love After All: Quotes by Alan Ayckbourn
Quotes about Love After All by other writers can be found here.“Encouraged by the success of my first play, I swiftly followed up with another. Stephen Joseph warned me that the second one was going to be a lot harder but, because I stole the plot of this, it was actually a lot easier. It was about a very handsome young man - played of course by the author - wooing and winning the beautiful but brainless heroine, despite her father's objections. Actually the best character was a pig breeder called Rupert Hodge played by William Elmhirst who stole the show. The finale had several Chinamen rushing about. Heaven knows why. The Guardian described it as 'lacking in wit'.”
(‘Ayckbourn at 50’ souvenir programme)
On the reason Alan wasn't cast in the original production of a play he had written intending to take the main role
"Love After All was done by Clifford Williams. But at some period when it was touring, I went off to do National Service, and I left the company."
(Ian Watson, ‘Conversations With Ayckbourn’)
“I didn't write it in any particular period, because I wasn't that clever, but it was obviously going to be a period thing, because it was based on The Barber of Seville. I remember seeing the play at school. The suitor keeps coming back and disguising himself, getting in as a music teacher. I tinkered around with it a lot. And in the first version, with Clifford Williams directing, it was a very good production - it was very tight and quite fun, and we did it Edwardian. It was later revived, the following summer I think, with me playing the lead; and it was directed by Julian Herington, who decided there were certain bits of it he didn't like very much, like its Edwardianness, and its rather jokey names. He brought it up to date, and I don't think the play actually gained from what we did to it.”
(Ian Watson, ‘Conversations With Ayckbourn’)
"I was a 19 year old megalomaniac, but those [early] plays made me a writer. I was learning that theatre is a practical craft. If plays are not spoken by actors and cursed about by stage managers, they don't really exist."
(The Times, 14 May 2018)
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