How The Other Half Loves Tickets
Alan Ayckbourn’s hugely entertaining farce about martial mishaps opened for a limited run at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, directed by Alan Strachan. Widely regarded as Ayckbourn’s most popular play, How the Other Half Loves follows three couples as they face accusations of adultery, with hilarious and chaotic results.
Written in 1969, How the Other Half Loves is a comedy based on plenty of marital misunderstandings which play out over the course of two separate dinner parties. Frank and Fiona Foster have a dismally distant relationship, Bob and Teresa Phillips are a rather loud and boisterous couple and William and Mary Featherstone are blissfully happy. Little do they know that the Fosters and Phillips are tangled up in affairs – with each other! Swearing their partners to secrecy, the adulterous couples accidentally implicate the innocent Featherstone’s as alibis, without realising that this will lead to entirely new accusations. A classic farce, Ayckbourn’s comedy of social graces is heart-wrenching yet utterly hilarious.
Ayckbourn is an Olivier and Tony Award-winning playwright, earning the coveted Special Lifetime Achievement Award. One of Britain’s most beloved writers and prolific directors, Ayckbourn has worked extensively in the West End, running his own company at the National Theatre. Retiring in 2009, he was previously the Artistic Director of Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre where his new work premieres. 2016 marks Ayckbourn’s 57th year as a playwright, which made it the perfect time for one of his well-loved comedies to make its way back to London. His most notable plays include Relatively Speaking, Absurd Person Singular, Bedroom Farce and A Chorus of Disapproval. Joining the cast of his hilarious comedy are Nicholas Le Prevost (People) and Jenny Seagrove (Judge John Deed), Jason Merrells (Emmerdale, Safe House) and Tamzin Outhwaite (Sweet Charity, New Tricks), and Matthew Cottle (Citizen Khan) and Gillian Wright (Eastenders).
How the Other Half Loves was the first of Ayckbourn’s plays to receive a Broadway transfer and is a popular choice with companies throughout the country. Directed by Alan Strachan and produced by Bill Kenwright, who was behind the recent revival of The Wizard of Oz, How the Other Half Loves opened for a limited run at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in March, before transferring to the Duke of York's Theatre in June following huge success.
Sorry this show closed 25 June 2016, we recommend these similar productions.