Simon Murgatroyd

Alan Ayckbourn's Archivist & Professional Writer

News & Events

Event: I've got three talks currently lined up in the coming months in Scarborough at the South Cliff Italian Gardens, for Scarborough Civic Society and at Beeforth's Hive. More details to be announced soon on the Events page.

Publication:
My article It's all Relative was published in the tour programme for the Bath Theatre Royals' 2023 UK tour of Alan Ayckbourn's Relatively Speaking.

Event:
I'll be giving a talk to mark the 25th anniversary of Comic Potential as part of The Crafty Art of Ayckbourn weekend at the Stephen Joseph Theatre from 15 - 17 September. Click here for details of the weekend.

Media:
My book, Unseen Ayckbourn: 2022 Edition has been reviewed in the Yorkshire Times.

Media:
My discovery of the Absurd Person Singular original draft manuscript has been reported in a number of regional newspapers including The Scarborough News.

Event:
My discovery of the long-thought lost original manuscript for Absurd Person Singular is recorded in a new website www.absurdpersonsingular.com, which looks at the significance of this and other recent discoveries and how it altered our understanding of how Alan Ayckbourn wrote his seminal play.

Publication: Unseen Ayckbourn: 2022 Edition is out now, updated and with new entires - including the playwright's prodigious pandemic writing. The book looks at withdrawn, lost and unwritten plays as well as concepts, alternate version and titles as well as other ephemera from the playwright's career. It's priced at £15 and details can be found here.

Publication: World premiere articles During 2022, I was commissioned to write articles for the world premieres of Alan Ayckbourn's 2022 plays: Family Album at the SJT, Scarborough, and All Lies at the Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness-on-Windermere.

Website: The Woman in Black Alan Ayckbourn's Official Website now has a section highlighting a key play which originated at the SJT. It looks at the original production of Stephen Mallatratt's adaptation of Susan Hill's novella The Woman In Black, which premiered in Scarborough in 1987 before becoming an international theatre phenomenon.

Publication: Towards Ayckbournia in Germany To mark Alan Ayckbourn's 80th birthday, author Albert-Reiner Glaap and publishers Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier published the 'festschrift' Towards Ayckbournia in Germany, celebrating his popularity in Germany. I contributed A Brief History Of Alan - a personal perspective of his work and how it has altered over the years. Available from amazon.de.

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