News about Dan Lewis

Sir Alan Ayckbourn is surely the Sir Geoffrey Boycott of British Theatre. OK, so AA isn't Yorkshire born or bred, but he has made the seaside town of Scarborough synonymous with his work over the past 65 years. Not only that, Ayckbourn's stats have come to resemble Boycott's cricket scores. At 85, he has just effortlessly clipped his 90th play, Show & Tell, for four. He surely merits his own Wisden Almanack, to record his work. This latest is about Jack Bothridge, truculent former owner of a department store founded by his grand­father. Since becoming a widower, Jack has drifted into hallucinogenic dementia in which he imagines his long-departed wife is still at his side. In honour of her birthday, he's arranged for a French farce to be performed at their manor house. As you do. 'She was always dragging me to the theatre,' Jack recalls, wistfully... 'I've slept beside her through the best of it.' The deceptively simple plot hinges on whether the on-off show will indeed go on, or off. But after Jack is visited by an actor who he mistakes for a meter-reader, the action craftily mixes his delusions with the theatrical illusions of the shoestring theatre company.