Kate Chisholm

Sharp as an arrow

Four couples but only three available bedrooms is the brilliant stratagem devised by Alan Ayckbourn for his 1975 relationship comedy Bedroom Farce. 

issue 07 November 2009

Four couples but only three available bedrooms is the brilliant stratagem devised by Alan Ayckbourn for his 1975 relationship comedy Bedroom Farce.

Four couples but only three available bedrooms is the brilliant stratagem devised by Alan Ayckbourn for his 1975 relationship comedy Bedroom Farce. It’s being revived at the Rose Theatre in Kingston in repertory with a rather different take on coupled life, Strindberg’s Miss Julie, for an aptly named season, ‘Behind Closed Doors’. The three separate bedrooms fill up the unusually wide lozenge-shaped stage of the new Rose (modelled on the Elizabethan original) as our four couples writhe and wrangle under the spotlight of Ayckbourn’s all-seeing, all-knowing wit.

Ernest and Delia who occupy the pink satin boudoir with en-suite bathroom on the far left are dressing up for their annual anniversary dinner in black tie and pearls (a bit odd even for the Seventies).

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