Alan Ayckbourn

"We all marry the wrong people" announces Edward Gray, looking at his three daughters and their unsuitable partners. But when his daughters change partners and then again - every combination is played out. The outcome being that none of them works any better than any of the others.

The year is 2014 and Phoebe, a prostitute specialising as a dominatrix, is summoned to a sixth floor suite in a London Hotel by an infirm elderly businessman, Reece, who wants her to perform an unusual service. He wants her to witness a document detailing the murder of his two wives by his business associate Julian. When Julian walks in, Phoebe disappears through the nearest door and finds herself in an identical suite, but in the year 1994. Not surprisingly, the suite's occupant, Reece's second wife is sceptical about her explanation. When Phoeboe goes through another door, and finds herself in 1974 with Reece's first wife, she decides to rewrite the future. Alan Aykbourne's 46th play, "Communicating Doors" premiered in Scarborough in 1994, and stared Julia McKenzie.

Fred sits, somewhere or other, next to a sign which reads "Stories told here today". He's been waiting a long time - or at least he thinks he has. A group of actors, the storyplayers arrive. They are followed by the ageing storytellers, who create the characters and the plots for the storyplayers to act out. What the storyplayers would really like is to make up their own stories and they enlist Fred's help to free them. But are the storyplayers acting independently or taking part in another story created by the storytellers? And is Fred really an outsider or another of their inventions? Reality and fiction mix in this play for young people which combines theatre and storytelling, music, and a host of sound effects into a piece of theatrical magic.

Eight years of macaroni and cheese for breakfast, lunch and supper... It's enough to drive a boy crazy - until a new, unexpected, and rather dangerous creature arrives on Callisto 5.1 woman, 2 men

Due to an unfortunate triple booking, three storytellers, Peter, Paul and Percy, arrive simultaneously each to tell his own story. After some acrimony, Percy wins out and is soon telling his story - a Victorian yarn featuring, to his dismay, Paul who has hijacked the leading role. Soon Peter in turn is continuing Percy's unresolved fable only to find Percy appearing in this. In due course, Peter appears in Paul's gothic story (an extension of Peter's forties tales) and together they reach a surprisingly happy conclusion.8 women, 9 men

Stanley, Hazel, Warren and Rick make the weekly escape from their real life nightmares into a role-playing board game peopled by dragons and monsters. A safe world where the dangers are of their own imagining; where they are free to become heroes of their own devising. But how clear is the dividing line between what they choose to be and what they really are? What would it take for them to lose sight of it altogether? All it requires is Marcie. Loveable, understanding, sympathetic Marcie - destined to become the new demon to haunt their wildest dreams.

Fans of his Ernie's Incredible Illucinations are sure to enjoy this story. Suzy lives in a cottage with her mother and her dog, Neville. Suave but sinister Mr. Accousticus moves into the big house across the street and Neville suddenly loses his bark. Suzy is certain the new neighbor is responsible so she and Neville search his house. What happens next? It's up to the audience in this imaginative tale.-8 women or men

Three comedies, each taking place at the same time and in the same house but in different rooms center on the same character, Norman, who is the cause of considerable confusion to his family

A scathing comedy of social striving in the suburbs, Absurd Person Singular follows the fortunes of three couples who turn up in each other's kitchens on three successive Christmases, to hilarious and devastating effect.

Henry Bell has come to the Albert Bridge to throw himself off because he has lost his wife and his job. Instead, he saves Karen Knightly who has thrown herself off the bridge already and is dangling by her caught coat. They spend a long night driving. Henry learns that Karen has been jilted by a lover who has gone back to his wife. She suggests revenge as a way to heal their emotional wounds: she will fix Henry's dreadful former boss and Henry must ruin her ex lover's wife.-12 women, 11 men

Time of My Life charts the decline and fall of a successful family business founded and nurtured by Gerry and Laura Stratton. It is Laura's fifty-fourth birthday and Gerry has organized a small family dinner at their favourite restaurant. Domestically, all seems well. Glyn, their eldest son, has patched up his marriage with Stephanie; younger son Adam has a new girlfriend and is deeply in love. But, as we suspect, all this is surface stuff. For, as their evening proceeds, the play reveals skeletons from the past and a spectre of the future.

Mr Whatnot is Mint, a piano tuner, summoned to the stately home of Lord and Lady Slingsby-Craddock. Once there he falls in love with their daughter, Amanda, elopes with her, fails to save her from marriage to Cecil but wins through in the end. With plenty of mime and sound effects Mr Whatnot offers great opportunities to an imaginative director for a highly entertaining and unusual production.4 women, 7 men

Television producer Jill Rillington is taping a documentary, which will reunite Vic Parks with Douglas Beechey. Seventeen years ago, Douglas inadvertently foiled Vic's last bank robbery, during which Vic shot a teller in the face. Vic, a callous boor, served his time and then exploited his celebrity status to become a wealthy television personality. Douglas married the maimed teller and hero and victim fell into shabby obscurity. Now, at Vic's luxurious Mediterranean villa, Jill's hopes for a fiery confrontation are fading because amiable Douglas shows no envy or bitterness and happy people make rotten telly material. Will Vic ever receive his just deserts?

When Miss Pickhart visits the illusionist Ratchet on official Town Hall business, she discovers a sinister secret. Alone in the cellar after Ratchet is called away, she confronts the ghost of Rosalinda who met an untimely death during the saw the woman in half trick. 2 women, 1 man

England's comic master is in a black comic mode in this West End hit about our fascination with technology. It is sometime quite soon in a steel shuttered, slovenly flat in a no go area of North London where punks rule deserted streets. Here, a lonely composer sits surrounded by high tech equipment. His only company is a robot nanny, and she's on the blink. He desperately wants to reclaim his teenage daughter and enlists an out of work actress to implement a cunning plan he's evolved to impress his estranged wife and a wired for sound child welfare officer. When things don't work out, Jerome has to improvise... It's amazing what can be done with a few micro chips and a screwdriver!

Alan Ayckbourn's version of the first of the famous Aldwych farces was produced by the National Theatre. It is the story of an unsuccessful inventor who inherits the life interest in a fortune which is to revert on his death to his cousin George Maitland. As Cousin George is thought to have died abroad, the inventor has the brilliant idea of "dying" so that he can resurrect himself as his cousin and avoid paying his enormous debts. Complications arise in the form of George's wife, another Maitland imposter (the butler's brother) and finally the real George Maitland himself!-4 women, 6 men

Jack McCraken has the opportunity of a lifetime: he is the new head of a family furniture business and believes he will initiate a new age of honesty and integrity. He quickly learns that everyone else involved in the enterprise has a vested interest in maintaining business as usual, rife with dishonesty and deceit.

The comic poet of middle class life, always so very funny, goes deeper and darker in this triumphant play about a housewife named Susan who is married to a boring cleric named George. After getting knocked out by stepping on the tooth end of a garden rake, Susan experiences hilarious hallucinations in which her oppressive and boring everyday life is replaced by a fantasy in which she is an ideal wife and mother with an ideal family. While her real family treats her with condescension and apathy, her fantasy family dresses in lovely white, always drinks champagne, lives in a stately home and tells her that she is wonderful. Eventually, the fantasy family becomes nightmarish and Susan begins to realize that she is going mad.