About the Play:

Time of My Life is a full-length comedy by Alan Ayckbourn. Set in a small Italian restaurant, the play charts, chats and chomps its way through the rise and fall of a disastrously dysfunctional middle-class family's fortunes and relationships. Alan Ayckbourn comments on family, work, relationships, and of course food, but ultimately his manipulation of past, present and future suggest that living in the moment is the best time of all.

Time of My Life revolves around a family dinner at their favourite restaurant organized by successful businessman Gerry Stratton to celebrate his wife Laura's 54th birthday. Their grown sons, Glyn and Adam are also present. Glyn is with his long suffering wife Stephanie; their marriage looks to be on firmer ground that it once was. Adam has brought along his new girlfriend, an outrageous hairdresser, and they are both eager to impress. They are both eager to impress. But too much wine and too many family skeletons gradually intrude on the celebration and the happy domestic scene: Glyn's unfaithfulness knows no bounds, the family transport business has been hit by the recession, and Laura has been unfaithful. Glyn's story is set more recently and Adam's further back in time, while at the center Gerry and Laura pick apart their marriage and recall first love. By juxtaposing events from the past, present, and future, Ayckbourn lets the audience know things that the characters themselves may not know, and he encourages us to recognize those moments that make us happy as the moments occurs.

Time Of My Life premiered in 1992 at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough and then at The Vaudeville in the West End in 1993.

Cast: 3 women, 4 men

What people say:

"A play by an inspired master craftsman and cunning psychologist working at full stretch: harsh and funny, simple and cunning, generous but unforgiving." — Sunday Times (London)

"Funny, very funny, and not at all funny; quintessentially Ayckbourn." — Daily Times (London)

"Immensely subtle, ingenious." — Guardian (London)

About the Playwright:

Sir Alan Ayckbourn 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 77 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.