Three Plays - Absurd Person Singular, Absent Friends, Bedroom Farce

Jul 2, 2025 9:32 AM

Author:Alan Ayckbourn

'What is remarkable about Alan Ayckbourn's comedy is that it contrives to be simultaneously hilarious and harrowing. Literally, it is agonisingly funny'

Daily Telegraph

In Three Plays Ayckbourn's perfectly pitched dialogue slices into the soul of suburbia. The settings are simple - a kitchen, a bedroom, a party - but the relationships between the husbands and wives are more complicated. Fraught relationships are exposed with humour, bathos and a sharp understanding of human nature.

Reviews

Enjoyable, well-paced and engaging

—— Lucille Houston , Times Literary Supplement

Like Amélie, Hunting and Gathering stops at nothing to make the reader feel good. Reading it reminded me of tucking into one of those beautifully constructed little cakes that you see in the windows of elegant French patisseries

—— Sunday Telegraph

A charming, romantic - and very French - novel

—— Rev'd Amber Pearson , Daily Mail

An elegant, ironic tale.. this will be a classic

—— Cosmopolitan

Gavalda's ability to reinvent the will-they-won't-they love story makes this a refreshing five-star read with real bite

—— Eve

Exhibits extraordinary originality

—— John Bayley , Independent

Saramago can transform banal sentiments into unexpected profundities

—— David McAllister , TLS

Earle seems to have little trouble expanding his range from a three-minute song to a 300-page narrative... And though the novel comes no closer to establishing the facts of Hank Williams's death, it certainly reveals a good deal of truth behind it

—— Alfred Hickling , Guardian

A witty, heartfelt story of hope, forgiveness and redemption

—— Booklist

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