Living Together
by Alan Ayckbourn
16th to 18th May 2019
Director: Peter Konowalik
Living Together follows the misadventures of a dysfunctional middle-class family who find themselves gathered together in a grand suburban house. Annie, the carer for her elderly mother, has planned an illicit weekend away with Norman, the incorrigibly libidinous librarian married to her sister Ruth. To this end she has summoned her brother Reg and his wife Sarah to mind mother in her absence. Troubles start to brew when Annie calls off her liaison and the family members are all trapped together for the weekend. Idiotic sibling rivalries are stirred up. Norman wreaks havoc. Meanwhile Annie’s good-natured yet ineffective boyfriend Tom potters around the house oblivious to the tension and frustrations evolving around him.
Living Together is a standalone play, part of Alan Ayckbourn’s Norman Conquests trilogy; three plays taking place during the same July weekend in different parts of the house. It is an observational comedy of domestic discord borne out of people’s dissatisfaction with their lives, the misunderstandings that hamper relationships and the need for romance.
Nominated in the 2019 Derby Theatre Eagle Awards Best Production Category
‘Living Together’ proves impossible, even for a weekend, but watching them try is a comic treat. An impressive production of an Ayckbourn classic. Theatre Whippet
The Director had cast the perfect sextet to play the three dysfunctional couples gathered together at the home of their elderly mother. Ayckbourn himself would have been delighted with the way each had perfected his characters. Artsbeat Magazine