Season's Greetings: Frequently Asked Questions

Alan Ayckbourn's Archivist Simon Murgatroyd's answers some of the most frequently asked questions about Alan Ayckbourn's Season's Greetings. If you have a question about this or any other of Alan Ayckbourn's plays, you can contact the website via the Contact Us page.

I'm directing / staging the play and think it would benefit from seeing the children on-stage. Can I add them?
No. If you feel the need to add children to Season's Greetings, you have either not read the play or completely misunderstood its intentions and should probably tackle another play. Skipping the obvious point that if Alan Ayckbourn had wanted to write children into the play, he would have written children into the play, the play is obviously not about the children, who are left to our imaginations. The play is about the adults and how they essentially regress to childish behaviour at Christmas. To put children into the play is a distraction and does not benefit the play in any appreciable way - plus it breaks the performance license as it is an unapproved alteration to the script.

Can I produce Season's Greetings in a contemporary setting?
Providing you don't change any of the dialogue, then yes. Otherwise, no. Alan Ayckbourn regards his plays as, essentially, period pieces which reflect the social situations of the time they were written. Season's Greetings was written in 1980 and reflects social attitudes of that time. To alter or update the play will, by necessity, alter to varying degrees the author's intentions for the play. It is best produced - as with all of Ayckborun's plays - in the period when it was written.

Where can I obtain the television adaptation of Season's Greetings?
Unfortunately, the television adaptation of Season's Greetings is not available to buy. The adaptation has never been released commercially and the playwright is aware of no intention by the BBC to release Season's Greetings in the foreseeable future.

What was the music used during Alan Ayckbourn's 2019 revival of Season's Greetings?
Alan Ayckbourn used two pieces of music. The prelude to the play and the opening of the second act was Carol of the Bells and the music between scenes was A Big Phat Christmas Wrap by Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band.

All research for this page by Simon Murgatroyd.

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