How The Other Half Loves: Articles

This section contains articles about How The Other Half Loves by Alan Ayckbourn and other authors. Click on the link in the right-hand column to read the other articles.

This article was written by Alan Ayckbourn for an unrecorded revival of the play.

How The Other Half Loves

I’ve always been interested in Time. Stage Time that is. How a writer is able - and often does - bend time to suit his story-telling. ‘Heavens,’ cries some character, ‘I’ve been here over an hour and nobody’s even offered me a drink.’ In reality, of course, while it’s an hour for the character, for the audience it’s been only 15 minutes. It’s a device used one way or another in practically every play that’s ever been written. In How The Other Half Loves, I’ve explored this a little more than is normal.

Similarly with space. Stage Space that is. The same area of stage can be used to denote, say, a forest or a sitting room or a mineshaft – often with very little setting, particularly on the open stages that I normally use. Again, How The Other Half Loves plays around quite considerably with space. In fact, playing describes the whole piece rather exactly.

The play’s a game really which I hope an audience enjoys playing as much as the actors enjoy playing it.

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