Alan Ayckbourn - Paul Allen

This biography of Britain's most popular playwright follows his early years as an actor, producer and struggling writer straight through to his great West End comedy successes in the 1970s and 1980s and on to his more gripping, and 'serious' plays of the 1990s. Following his unsettled childhood, his marriages and working relationship with actors such as Felicity Kendall, Richard Briars, Penelope Keith and Michael Gambon, this biography looks at his private life while asking what has made him such a successful writer, director and producer. He is a rare breed of theatre man: someone who works in the North where he has developed the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough into a luminous regional theatre kingdom but also a well known figure in London theatre and the international stage. Allen's biography looks at Ayckbourn the private man and the public theatre personality he has become for many in Britain.

Mr Allen's book makes me want to start reading the entire Ayckbourn canon over again...splendid stuff Hugh Leonard, Sunday Independent

"Paul Allen has come up with a wise, well-informed book that not only persuades us of Ayckbourn's genius but also helps to explain this complex, driven man" Michael Billington, Country Life

"Lucid, meticulously researched ... this impressively detailed account benefits from Paul Allen's rich inside knowledge of theatre" Terry Eagleton, Times Literary Supplement

"Thorough and enjoyable" Christopher Hirst, Independent