A Small Family Business

A Smal Family Business
A Smal Family Business
Written by	Alan Ayckbourn
Characters	Ken ; Desmond ; Harriet ; Jack ; Poppy ; Cliff ; Anita ; Samantha ; Tina ; Roy ; Yvonne ; Benedict ; The Rivetti Brothers
Date premiered	21 May 1987
Place premiered	England
Original language	English
Subject	Greed, corruption
Genre	Drama
	Official site
Ayckbourn chronology
Woman in Mind; (1985)	Henceforward...; (1987)

A Small Family Business is a play by Alan Ayckbourn about the eponymous business and dealing with the Thatcherism of the time. It premiered at the Olivier stage of the Royal National Theatre on 20 May 1987, where it won the Evening Standard Award for Best Play for that year. Its Broadway premiere occurred on 27 April 1992.

Radio adaptation

A radio adaptation directed by Martin Jarvis was broadcast at 8 p.m. on Sunday 12 April 2009 on BBC Radio 3 as part of the celebrations of its author's 70th birthday that day. Its cast included:

Jack McCraken – Alfred Molina
Benedict – Adam Godley
Poppy – Rosalind Ayres
Anita – Joanne Whalley
Cliff – Kenneth Danziger
Ken – Roy Dotrice
Yvonne – Millicent Martin
Harriet – Jill Gascoine
Desmond – Julian Sands
Roy – Darren Richardson
Tina – Moira Quirk
Samantha – Fuchsia Sumner
The five Rivetti brothers – Matthew Wolf

Reception

In 2000, The Telegraph's Charles Spencer praised A Small Family Business as one of the "finest British plays of recent years" along with Tom Stoppard's Arcadia (1993).

References

^ Billington, Michael (9 April 2014). "A Small Family Business review – revival sells Ayckbourn short". The Guardian.
^ "A Small Family Business | Samuel French". samuelfrench.com.
^ "Evening Standard Theatre Awards 1980–2003". Evening Standard. London. 29 October 2003.
^ "A Small Family Business – Broadway Play – Original | IBDB". ibdb.com.
^ "BBC Radio 3 – Drama on 3, A Small Family Business". BBC.
^ Spencer, Charles (17 May 2000). "A stripped-down comedy that's no laughing matter". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on 27 February 2016. Retrieved 7 July 2020.

External links

Major productions of A Small Family Business
Radio 3 adaptation
A Small Family Business at the Internet Broadway Database

This article on a play from the 1980s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[1] Billington, Michael (9 April 2014). "A Small Family Business review – revival sells Ayckbourn short". The Guardian.

[2] "A Small Family Business | Samuel French". samuelfrench.com.

[3] "Evening Standard Theatre Awards 1980–2003". Evening Standard. London. 29 October 2003.

[4] "A Small Family Business – Broadway Play – Original | IBDB". ibdb.com.

[5] "BBC Radio 3 – Drama on 3, A Small Family Business". BBC.

[6] Spencer, Charles (17 May 2000). "A stripped-down comedy that's no laughing matter". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on 27 February 2016. Retrieved 7 July 2020.