www.southenddrama.co.uk

Table Manners

Author: Alan Ayckbourn

Director: Graham Smerdon

Production: 11th - 14th November 2009

Theatre: The Dixon Studio, Palace Theatre, Westcliff

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Table Manners is the first of three plays in Alan Ayckbourn's "trilogy", The Norman Conquests. All three plays (Table Manners, Living Together, and 'Round and 'Round the Garden) are set in England and take place simultaneously.

Each play also stands alone, with Table Manners being the acknowledged "funniest" of the three (acknowledged by critics and Ayckbourn himself) and this is the play that Southend Drama Society are presenting here.

Surrounding events at meal times in the dining room, the play focuses on an extended family who despise each other, while at the same time not being able to get enough of each other! Let battle commence!

THE hilarious Alan Ayckbourn masterpiece, Table Manners, will be served up at the Palace Theatre’s Dixon Studio this autumn by Southend Drama Society.

The chaotic comedy of manners revolves around a disastrous family gathering one weekend in modern-day suburbia.

The dowdy Annie is waiting to be relieved of caring for her bedridden mother by her brother Reg and his wife Sarah. However, when highly-strung Sarah learns Annie is planning a saucy weekend away in East Grinstead with brother-in-law, Norman, she resolves to stop the lovers’ tryst and implores Annie to settle down with the nice, but dim family friend, Tom.

Desperate to prevent the possibility of any further advances, Sarah summons Ruth – Norman’s short-sighted wife – to the family home for Sunday dinner. The situation comes to a head in an excruciatingly funny meal, set around the dinner table where pent-up frustrations finally boil over.

It is not the first time the award-winning society – semi-finalists in this year’s All England Theatre Festival – has staged an Ayckbourn classic. The group began its successful return to the Dixon Studio in 2007 with Family Circles. Since then it has gone on to stage Play It Again Sam, Don’t Dress for Dinner and Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime in July.

Table Manners will be at the Dixon Studio in the Palace Theatre, London Road, Westcliff, from Wednesday, November 11, until Saturday, November 14. Evening performances start at 8pm with a 3pm Saturday matinee.

Tickets are £9 for Wednesday evening and the matinee and £11 at all other times. For tickets, call the box office on 01702 351135.