Kevin Spacey loves Alan Ayckbourn to death, and nearly proved it when an over-zealous bear hug at the end of The Norman Conquests trilogy sent Britain’s most successful living playwright flying and gasping for air while flat on his back on the stage.

He had been led to this undiginified nemesis by Spacey himself and accorded a heartfelt standing ovation which was only marred by the unexpected tumble into the front stalls, customers aghast, spectacles shooting in all directions.

But the grand old man of Scarborough jumped up pretty smartish, aided by critic Matt Wolf, still beaming, seeing the funny side in mild mishap just as you would expect from someone who mines such comedy in the misery of our everyday relationships.

We measure out our theatre-going lives in treats like this all-day trilogy of Ayckbourn plays, The Norman Conquests, at the Old Vic yesterday. We had assembled for coffeee and croissants before an eleven o’clock morning start and departed ten and a half hours later after three plays, two meal breaks, and a host of brief encounters on the way, and not just with the plays’ characters.

Director Matthew Warchus told me he was still astonished that Ayckbourn wrote this interlocking masterpiece when he was just thirty-three years old, but I don’t think his unabated admiration stems from the fact of Ayckbourn being so fledgling an artist, but that his stock of human misery and disaffection with domestic relationships was so palpably and distressingly high.

Light comedy? Pshaw! Over three plays we have sex, so to speak, on the fake fur rug, thrown biscuits all over the place, a punch on the nose, two men snogging, cries of “slut” and bleats of suicide, binge drinking, broken plates and a car crash.

Most astonishing of all, perhaps — apart from the beauty and fragile intensity of the acting — is the transformation of the Old Vic into an “in-the-round” space thanks to the financial input of  CQS, the global alternative asset management group, and the Hintze Family Charitable Foundation.

I mention these sponsors not because I’ve been asked to, but because they have allowed Ayckbourn’s work to be seen for the first time in London as it was conceived back at home base in Scarborough. The Young Vic would be an ideal venue, but the great thing here is that we have not only a new space for Ayckbourn, but an enhancement of the Old Vic itself, so well is the work done.

I can’t imagine that Kevin Spacey and his colleagues won’t want to use the theatre in this reconfiguration again, and designer Rob Howell assures me that the new structures can be dismantled, stored and used again when required.

For the second play I sat “on the stage,” facing the auditorium proper, next to actor Michael Thomas currently playing one of the political grandees in Waste at the Almeida; he, too, was gobsmacked by the new arrangement, and he spoke as one who played Reg in one of the Norman Conquests’ first revivals (maybe even the first) at Stoke-on-Trent’s in-the-round theatre in 1976.

The theatre even has a new stalls-level bar, sponsored by American Airlines, on your way in, pleasantly manned and decorated in departure lounge grey drapes. During one interval there, playwright Alistair Beaton confided that he had been commissioned to write a new play for Spacey by Christmas and added for good measure that he felt Martin Sherman’s new play at Chichester about Aristotle Onassis starring Robert Lindsay had been seriously underrated by the reviewers.

With my guest of choice, Carolyn Mulcahy, formerly events manager for the Beaverbrook Press and the Evening Standard, we sailed through our highly enjoyable meal breaks at the Tas Restaurant along the Cut (falafels and salads) and the Waterloo Bar round the side of the theatre (pate and chicken with chestnuts and saute potatoes) with unimpeded pleasure.

Ayckbourn himself was obviously delighted with the way the show went, sitting throughout on a convenient perch near the new tunnel exit to the bar with his wife Heather Stoney, grinning benignly, modest as ever, greeting the understudies and old friends wherever he turned, slightly frail now, on his walking stick. He was even frailer after that bear hug.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at 9:17 am and is filed under Michael Coveney. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.