Alan Ayckbourn: Actor
Henry IV (1958)
Production Details
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Henry IV
Luigi Pirandello
10 February 1958
Oxford Playhouse
End-stage
Frank Dunlop
Michael Richardson
Jane Greenwood
Luigi Pirandello
10 February 1958
Oxford Playhouse
End-stage
Frank Dunlop
Michael Richardson
Jane Greenwood
Character
Valet
Landolfo
Arialdo
Ordulfo
Bertoldo
Giovanni
Marquis Carlo di Nolli
Baron Tito Belcredi
Dr. Dionisio Genoni
Countess Matilda Spina
Frida
'The Emperor Henry IV'
Valet
Landolfo
Arialdo
Ordulfo
Bertoldo
Giovanni
Marquis Carlo di Nolli
Baron Tito Belcredi
Dr. Dionisio Genoni
Countess Matilda Spina
Frida
'The Emperor Henry IV'
Actor
Michael Simpson
Michael Poole
Alan Ayckbourn
Ian Curteis
Christopher Hancock
David Buxton
Christopher Guinee
Joss Ackland
Robert Bernal
Pat Keen
Ruth Meyers
Edgar Wreford
Michael Simpson
Michael Poole
Alan Ayckbourn
Ian Curteis
Christopher Hancock
David Buxton
Christopher Guinee
Joss Ackland
Robert Bernal
Pat Keen
Ruth Meyers
Edgar Wreford
Quotes & Notes
Alan Ayckbourn worked at the Oxford Playhouse following his first summer season at the Library Theatre, Scarborough, in 1957. He was part of the Playhouse company for the autumn / winter 1957 season until Stephen Joseph asked him to return to Scarborough for the summer of 1958. Despite the Playhouse hoping he would stay on, Alan decided to pursue his theatrical career in Scarborough."At the end of that season [his first summer season at the Library Theatre, Scarborough] a certain director from Oxford, a man called Milos Volanakis, had been up to see a couple of the shows and had liked my performances - at least, I put it down modestly to the idea that that's what he'd liked. He wanted me to audition for Oxford Playhouse, which he ran with Frank Hauser. I was always to be fated like this, to be drifting from one job to another. I never, in all my years of acting, was ever unemployed. Once I started at Worthing, I didn't stop: Worthing, Leatherhead, Scarborough, Oxford, Scarborough....
"I went to Oxford, and again fell right into a very, very nice situation. I was very lucky there, because once again there was a big, talented company, a marvellous man running it - Frank Hauser, who was again a man genuinely interested in young talent who went out of his way to help - and it was a theatre that was on the up at the time. I suppose if I'd auditioned for it, I'd never have got in. I did Under Milk Wood there, and I played the romantic juve with Mai Zetterling. In fact we did a lot of exciting things that were good for a boy at that age."
('Conversations With Ayckbourn', 1981)
All research for this page by Simon Murgatroyd.