Background
This play was one of several attempts Alan Ayckbourn made to write a play involving swapping bodies. In 1990, Body Language was premiered, where a fat woman and a thin woman swap bodies from the neck down following a botched operation. And in 2002, in The Jollies a young boy is transported into an adult's body whilst his mother is transported into a young girl's body.
The play was written in January 2006, initially with the title If I Were You, which was then altered to I to I before reverting to the original. However, there were no plans to produce the play that year, as the Stephen Joseph Theatre already planned to produce revivals of Intimate Exchanges and Woman in Mind. However, on 21 February 2006, Alan Ayckbourn suffered a stroke. As a result, directorship of Intimate Exchanges passed to Tim Luscombe, and the production of Woman in Mind was eventually dropped altogether. Whilst in hospital, Ayckbourn decided to use his latest play as a goal to work towards. I to I was scheduled for the autumn slot vacated by Woman in Mind in June, rehearsed at the rehearsal studio at his home, and the play was announced to the public, now retitled as If I Were You, in July.
It has been argued that If I Were You is part of a trend of Ayckbourn's adult plays taking inspiration from his family plays (in this case, The Jollies, which also deals with the adjustments and insights of being someone else) - the first example being Improbable Fiction and its derivation from The Boy Who Fell Into A Book and My Very Own Story.
Read more about this topic: If I Were You (play)
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