Alan Ayckbourn is, as once described, ‘a theatrical beast’ in that his entire career has been dedicated to the stage.

Unlike many of his peers, he has never been lured away by the big or small screen, despite many offers. He has written just one produced screenplay in his life (way back in the 1970s) and has only been involved in one of the screen adaptations of his plays.

He has dedicated his professional career to theatre, playwriting and stage-directing. And yet he admits his single biggest cultural influence is film, which has inspired him and influenced what he has written and produced on stage.

Here the playwright talks about his cinematic influences, particularly with regard for the play Private Fears in Public Places (2004), for which the article was written.

Private Fears in Public Places by Alan Ayckbourn

During the ’80s and ’90s, the distinguished French film director Alain Resnais visited Scarborough on a number of occasions professing himself a fan of my work. Indeed, later on he made a film version of Intimate Exchanges which he re-titled Smoking / No Smoking. Typically, Alain chose from the then current catalogue of around 45 plays a theatrical two-handed marathon which boasted, on-stage, 16 different endings. Alain managed 12 over two films. Not bad going, I felt; and certainly one of the better film versions of my work to date.

One year I asked Alain what he felt it was that drew us together, both of us at first glance so different in style and content. He shrewdly observed that whilst he considered his approach to films to be in terms of the stage play, I on the other hand tended, it seemed to him, to approach stage plays as though they were films. In other words, he made plays for the movies, I made movies for the stage.

And it is indeed true that all my earlier childhood theatrical memories came from films and rarely from the stage. Blessedly, I grew up during a period when every English town, however small, boasted at least 3 cinemas.

These all showed double bills offering an ‘A’ and ‘B’ feature which changed over mid-week. In addition, on Sunday (For One Day Only) they also showed a totally different double bill. In other words, each showed on average 6 films a week; with 3 cinemas to choose from during the long summer holidays there were 18 films playing in continuous performance from 2 pm through to 10 pm. My step-brother and I saw them all. Twice. Actually we preferred the second viewing because we were able to anticipate the surprises and twists and infuriate the other picture-goers.

Amongst these were some of the worst movies ever made – the Jungle Jim series sticks in my memory especially (he fought most of the wildlife of Africa bare-handed but never lost his hat) – but with so many films to choose from, inevitably we hit a good one now and then. Some of the classic films noir – the Ealing Comedies, Powell and Pressburger’s groundbreaking canon and those of Preston Sturges, Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder. Later on came Rene Clair, Bunuel, Cocteau and a whole host of new wave European directors.

I can’t recall ever actually going to the theatre. At least not straight theatre, not until well into my teens. A yearly visit to the current Crazy Gang Christmas Show at the Victoria Palace and that was the sum of my juvenile theatre-going. Oh, and my mother once mistakenly took me to an ‘adult’ topless cabaret which I enjoyed quite a bit.

No, movies dominated everything. I can’t really recall how I came to arrive in theatre at all. By rights I should have run away at 10 and become a clapper boy. The engagement with live theatre just sort of happened. Probably, I suspect, because both my boarding schools, whilst extremely active with stage drama, offered little or no opportunity for film making.

But still, the result was that when I embarked on my theatrical writing career aged 19 my influences were definitely filmic. And have been, more or less, ever since. This is not to deny the debt I owe to many of my influential theatrical peers, H. Pinter, A. Chekhov and all. But none has been as influential as Stan Laurel.

Which may explain why my plays, unless very drastically adapted, tend not to translate into good movies. They are movies to begin with. Sometimes closer to celluloid than others.

When I was approached by someone wanting to turn my two-part play The Revengers’ Comedies into a film my immediate reaction was – but it’s already a film. A very successful one too, Hitchcock’s Strangers On a Train. I had merely taken the initial concept, bent and reshaped it, added references to well over 20 other movies and served it up on stage.

On other occasions, the references are slightly less obvious. But Bedroom Farce‘s very filmic use of the cross-cut, How The Other Half Loves‘ use of the superimposed, split-screen shot and most especially all my children’s plays – are movies set on stage.

Private Fears In Public Places is another. Not especially in content – though you may spot an occasional (unintentional) reference. But in style, construction and even, in a way, overall feel.

Welcome to the Theatre. Happy movie-going!

You can find out more about Private Fears in Public Places – which was actually later made into a rather good film by Alain Resnais – on Alan Ayckbourn’s Official Website by clicking here.

Article by Alan Ayckbourn and copyright of Haydonning Ltd. Please don not reproduce without permission of the copyright holder.