In 1987, Alan Ayckbourn took a two-year sabbatical from the Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round, Scarborough, to form his own company at the National Theatre at the invitation of Peter Hall. It was, Alan later said, probably the only offer he would accept to move away from Scarborough for any length of time.
Alan was asked to direct three plays, including a new one of his own, and had to use all three theatre spaces. Alan wrote A Small Family Business for the largest – and most challenging – auditorium, the Olivier. It provided him with the opportunity to create a play that he could never conceivably produce or stage at his home theatre in Scarborough.
The play was also unusual in that it was the first Alan had not written for Scarborough since Mr Whatnot in 1963 and it was completed a year ahead of production. A very different pattern for Alan who, at the time, was still finishing his plays at the last minute for the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round.
In interviews, Alan has said the idea of the play came when one of his sons was discussing the accounting ‘tricks’ he had come across whilst studying catering. Alan was shocked and it started him wondering about morality in the modern world and how even an honest man could very easily take the wrong path, without ever believing he was compromising his own morals.
In residence at the National Theatre, Alan created – with the obvious exception of Way Upstream – the most ambitious staging for any of his plays. The play is set in a two storey house, which not only offered the opportunity for him to present a play as he had never presented one before but it also filled the vast Olivier space successfully and without compromise. Ingeniously, the set represents numerous houses – and at one memorable moment has events running concurrently on stage in two different homes. Alan’s solution to the unchanging furniture being the family run a furniture business and all have the latest, identical designs from the factory.
Alan’s acting company, which had several regular Scarborough actors, also included Michael Gambon - who Alan believes paid him a great compliment by signing his contract before he even read the script of A Small Family Business. The inclusion of the actor was a coup for Alan, but there was a near disaster when during previews Michael Gambon tripped over a cable and injured his foot. Previews were put back, but from there the play went on to become a phenomenal critical and commercial success for the National Theatre. The production went on to win the Evening Standard Best Play of the Year award.
As noted by the critic and writer Michael Billington about Alan’s previous play, Woman In Mind, it was now very obvious Alan was no longer the simple farceur many had labelled him early in his career. Billington argues A Small Family Business sees Alan continue his exploration of far larger social issues affecting ordinary people: Way Upstream tackling the issue of evil; Woman In Mind the fallibility of religion; A Small Family Business tackling morality and the perils of capitalism.
The impact of the play is hard to measure – unfortunately, despite its accomplishment and impact, the scale of the piece has led to few revivals – but the influential ‘90s playwright Mark Ravenhill has stated A Small Family Business was the political play of the ‘80s and had been an inspiration to him as a writer.
The success of A Small Family Business and Alan’s hugely acclaimed production of Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge, led many to believe Alan would not return to Scarborough. A view mischievously given credence in an article by the critic Michael Coveney. However, once his tenure at the National was over, Alan returned to Scarborough and moved straight into production of his play Man Of The Moment.
This work would complete a remarkable series of four plays, any one of which could rightly be regarded as a classic. Much as he had written five plays in succession in the ‘70s which defined his writing of that period with Absurd Person Singular, The Norman Conquests and Absent Friends; so the successive plays of Woman In Mind, A Small Family Business, Henceforward… and Man Of The Moment redefined him for the ‘80s.

Copyright: Simon Murgatroyd 2006