About the Play:

Ten Times Table is a full-length comedy by Alan Ayckbourn. A town pageant celebrating the "Pendon Twelve" rebellion, a re-enactment of an event in their history, descends into chaos as its ill-assorted organizing committee divides into factions. Witness sharp twists and turns, hilarious plans, and efforts to cut one another down, culminating in a re-enactment that mirrors the original event all too closely.

Ten Times Table follows the leading lights of the village who have decided to hold a pageant of local history based on a somewhat vague event, "The Massacre of the Pendon Twelve." But there's a young left wing teacher on the committee who decides to turn it into a rally for proletarian revolution. Committee meetings become symbolic battlefields for conflicting views the right wing faction being led by the Chairman's conservative wife. The event turns into a violent confrontation between the two extremes with cataclysmic results. Police intervention brings matters to a relatively quiet conclusion, but already another pageant Romans versus Britons seems an attractive possibility. Anybody who has ever sat in a meeting will recognize the characters at loggerheads in this extremely funny and farcical comedy.

Ten Times Table premiered in 1977 at Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round in Scarborough and opened at the Globe Theatre in London the following year.

Cast: 4 female, 6 male

What people say:

"A very entertaining farcial romp." — Eastern Daily Express (UK)

"...Ayckbourn at the top of his form. He has an extraordinary gift for presenting character with a sharp satirical acerbity without ever losing, or failing to communicate, his affection for them.." — Daily Telegraph (London)

About the Playwright:

Alan Ayckbourn, born in London in 1939, is one of the most widely performed living English language playwrights and a highly regarded theatre director. His works, mostly comedies, deal with middle-class manners and conflicts. He is a Tony, Olivier, and Moliere Award winning writer who has written 74 full length plays, more than half of which have gone on to London's West End. His contribution to theatre has been recognized with both a Special Tony Award and the Olivier's Special Award.