Damsels in Distress (plays) - West End Dispute

West End Dispute

The upset caused by the sidelining of GamePlan and FlatSpin in favour of RolePlay finally came to public attention in October 2002. Shortly after the end of the West End production, at the Orange World lecture at the Apollo Theatre, Michael Billington asked Alan Ayckbourn about the state of the West End. Ayckbourn responded by expressing his dissatisfaction with the commercial producers who, in his words, "condemned two of the parts to the dustbin," and said of the West End in general "If all we are looking for these days is one-shot plays with one big name in it, I don't want to be part of it." This was widely reported as Alan Ayckbourn threatening to boycott the West End.

Ayckbourn also heavily criticised the West End for casting cinema, pop and television stars instead of theatre actors, particularly their lack of voice projection. He singled out his harshest criticism for casting Madonna in David Williamson's Up for Grabs, saying "You might as well have put her on stage eating a plate of spaghetti and put a rope round her chair instead of putting her in a theatre where she wasn't at home and was struggling."

Although a "boycott" was not what Ayckbourn said word-for-word, the effect was broadly the same. The following year, Ayckbourn suggested he might return to the West End on condition that plays were staged on his terms, and this was interpreted as a sign that his latest play, Sugar Daddies, would get a West End performance. But this did not happen, and the closest performance to London was at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford. In 2005, Private Fears in Public Places also omitted the West End from its run, instead choosing to perform at the Outer London venue of the Orange Tree Theatre, in Richmond. Ayckbourn has continued to criticise the West End frequently, and has said he does not expect to direct at the West End again (except, if asked, at the National Theatre where he spent a two-year sabbatical).

In 2007, he relaxed the boycott to allow other directors to direct his "classic" plays in the West End again, although his moratorium on the recent plays remained, and Absurd Person Singular was performed at the Garrick Theatre. The following year, he allowed The Norman Conquests to be revived at The Old Vic, which went to the length of re-staging the theatre in the round, as the play was originally intended.

He finally allowed a return to the West End as a director with a revival of Woman in Mind starring Janie Dee. This revival, first staged at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in September 2008, ran in early 2009 at the Vaudeville Theatre, where the original London première was performed in 1986.