Dad's Tale: Facts

Dad's Tale

Play Number: 3
World Premiere: 19 December 1960
Venue: Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre, Scarborough

Premiere Staging: In-the-round

Published: No
Other Media: No

Cast: 4m / 2f

Synopsis: A Christmas play incorporating balletic interludes in which a poor family dreams of happier times.

Note: Dad's Tale has never been published, nor is it available to produce. Original manuscripts are held in the British Library and the Ayckbourn Archive at the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York.
  • Dad's Tale is Alan Ayckbourn's third play.
  • The world premiere was held at Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre, Scarborough, on 19 December, 1960.
  • Dad's Tale is credited to Alan's early writing pseudonym, Roland Allen.
  • Dad's Tale is the first of Alan Ayckbourn's 'family plays' - although as Dad's Tale is withdrawn, Mr A's Amazing Maze Plays is considered the first official 'family play'.
  • The play was conceived by Stephen Joseph - Artistic Director of Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre - as a collaboration between his two resident writers, David Campton and Alan Ayckbourn. However, this collaboration was only brief and Campton dropped out of the project.
  • Dad's Tale was also supposed to be an adaptation of Mary Norton's novel The Borrowers. However, only the presence of the 'Tinies' - fairy-like creatures who steal household items - links the play to The Borrowers.
  • It is Alan Ayckbourn's only attempt at writing a play incorporating ballet. After Alan had accepted the commission to write the play, Stephen Joseph let slip he had arranged for the British Dance Drama Theatre to be involved and Alan would need to incorporate balletic scenes into the play.
  • The play marked the first time the Australian actor Stanley Page would work with Alan Ayckbourn and appear in an Ayckbourn play. He would go on to become an important part of Alan Ayckbourn's Scarborough company during the 1970s and appeared in the world premieres of The Norman Conquests, Confusions, Bedroom Farce and Sisterly Feelings.
  • It is the first Ayckbourn play to offer multiple perspectives of a single situation and the first Ayckbourn play in which a character breaks the 'fourth wall' to speak directly to the audience.
  • Dad's Tale has never been published, nor is it available to produce. Original manuscripts are held in the British Library and the Ayckbourn Archive at the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York.
Article by Simon Murgatroyd and copyright of Haydonning Ltd. Please do not reproduce without permission of the copyright holder.