The Norman Conquests
Encyclopedia
The Norman Conquests is a trilogy
of plays
written in 1973 by Alan Ayckbourn
. The small scale of the drama is typical of Ayckbourn. There are only six characters, namely Norman, his wife Ruth, her brother Reg and his wife Sarah, Ruth's sister Annie, and Tom, Annie's next-door-neighbour. The plays are at times wildly comic, and at times poignant in their portrayals of the relationships between six characters.
Each of the plays depicts the same six characters over the same weekend in a different part of a house. Table Manners is set in the dining room, Living Together in the living room, and Round and Round the Garden in the garden. Each play is self-contained, and they may be watched in any order. Some of the scenes overlap, and on several occasions a character's exit from one play corresponds with an entrance in another. The plays were not written to be performed simultaneously, although Ayckbourn did achieve that some twenty-five years later in House & Garden
.
The plays were first performed in Scarborough, before a season in London, with a cast that included Tom Courtenay
as Norman, Penelope Keith
as Sarah, Felicity Kendal
as Annie, Michael Gambon
as Tom, Bridget Turner
as Ruth, and Mark Kingston
as Reg.
The first major London revival of The Norman Conquests was presented at The Old Vic
Theatre in 2008 with Matthew Warchus
directing a cast including Stephen Mangan
as Norman, Jessica Hynes as Annie, Ben Miles
as Tom, Amanda Root
as Sarah, Paul Ritter
as Reg and Amelia Bullmore
as Ruth. The Old Vic
auditorium was transformed to a theatre in the round
, known as the CQS Space, especially for this production.
Broadway
The plays originally premiered on Broadway in 1975 for 69 performances at the Morosco Theatre
, directed by Eric Thompson and featuring Richard Benjamin
, Ken Howard
, Barry Nelson
, Estelle Parsons
, Paula Prentiss
, and Carole Shelley
.
The 2008 Old Vic production opened on Broadway
with the London cast at the Circle in the Square Theatre
on April 7, 2009, official opening April 23, and scheduled closing on July 25, 2009.
Television adaptation
In 1977 the plays were adapted for the small screen by Thames Television
. Penelope Keith reprised her role as Sarah. The rest of the cast featured Tom Conti
as Norman, Penelope Wilton
as Annie, Richard Briers
as Reg, David Troughton
as Tom and Fiona Walker
as Ruth. The three films were directed by Herbert Wise
and produced by Verity Lambert
and David Susskind
. Keith won the BAFTA Television Award for Best Actress for her performance.
Thames Television
2009 Drama Desk Awards
New York Drama Critics' Circle
Outer Critics Circle Awards
Trilogy
A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games...
of plays
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
written in 1973 by Alan Ayckbourn
Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their...
. The small scale of the drama is typical of Ayckbourn. There are only six characters, namely Norman, his wife Ruth, her brother Reg and his wife Sarah, Ruth's sister Annie, and Tom, Annie's next-door-neighbour. The plays are at times wildly comic, and at times poignant in their portrayals of the relationships between six characters.
Each of the plays depicts the same six characters over the same weekend in a different part of a house. Table Manners is set in the dining room, Living Together in the living room, and Round and Round the Garden in the garden. Each play is self-contained, and they may be watched in any order. Some of the scenes overlap, and on several occasions a character's exit from one play corresponds with an entrance in another. The plays were not written to be performed simultaneously, although Ayckbourn did achieve that some twenty-five years later in House & Garden
House & Garden (plays)
House and Garden are a diptych of plays written by the English playwright Alan Ayckbourn, first performed in 1999. They are designed to be staged simultaneously, with the same cast in adjacent auditoria, and were published together as House & Garden. House takes place in the drawing room, and...
.
The plays were first performed in Scarborough, before a season in London, with a cast that included Tom Courtenay
Tom Courtenay
Sir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , Billy Liar , and Dr. Zhivago . Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre...
as Norman, Penelope Keith
Penelope Keith
Penelope Anne Constance Keith, CBE, DL is an English actress.Having started her television career in the 1950s, Penelope Keith became a household name in the United Kingdom in the 1970s when she played Margo Leadbetter in the sitcom The Good Life...
as Sarah, Felicity Kendal
Felicity Kendal
Felicity Ann Kendal, CBE is an English actor known for her television and stage work.Born in 1946, Kendal spent much of her childhood in India, where her father managed a touring repertory company. First appearing on stage at the age of nine months, Kendal appeared in her first film, Shakespeare...
as Annie, Michael Gambon
Michael Gambon
Sir Michael John Gambon, CBE is an Irish actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. A highly respected theatre actor, Gambon is recognised for his roles as Philip Marlowe in the BBC television serial The Singing Detective, as Jules Maigret in the 1990s ITV serial Maigret, and as...
as Tom, Bridget Turner
Bridget Turner
Bridget Turner is a British actress.She has worked with a number of very famous actors including Peter O'Toole, Elizabeth Taylor, Kirk Douglas, Bernard Blier, Trevor Howard, Bernadette Lafont and Richard Burton and Christina Ricci.On May 8, 2009 John Cleese stated in an interview that Bridget was...
as Ruth, and Mark Kingston
Mark Kingston
Mark Kingston was an English actor who made many television and stage appearances over his 50 year career....
as Reg.
The first major London revival of The Norman Conquests was presented at The Old Vic
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
Theatre in 2008 with Matthew Warchus
Matthew Warchus
-Life:Warchus studied music and drama at Bristol University. He has directed for the National Youth Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, Donmar Warehouse, Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal National Theatre, Opera North, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Welsh National Opera, English National Opera and in the West...
directing a cast including Stephen Mangan
Stephen Mangan
Stephen Mangan is an English actor, best known for his roles as Guy Secretan in the television series Green Wing, Dan Moody in I'm Alan Partridge and as Holistic Detective Dirk Gently in the 2010 BBC adaptation of Douglas Adams' book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, as well as Sean Lincoln...
as Norman, Jessica Hynes as Annie, Ben Miles
Ben Miles
Ben Miles is an English actor, best known for his starring role as Patrick Maitland in the British TV comedy Coupling, from 2000 to 2004.-Life and career:...
as Tom, Amanda Root
Amanda Root
Amanda Root is an English stage and screen actor and a former voice actor for children's programmes.Root known for her starring role in the 1995 BBC film adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion and the British TV comedy All About Me, as Miranda, alongside Richard Lumsden in 2004 and when she was a...
as Sarah, Paul Ritter
Paul Ritter
Paul Ritter was a Western Australian architect, town planner, sociologist, artist and author. He was born in Prague in 1925, the son of Carl Ritter and Elsa née Schnabel. He died on 14 June 2010, aged 85....
as Reg and Amelia Bullmore
Amelia Bullmore
Amelia Bullmore is an English actress and writer. She was born in London and studied drama at the University of Manchester. Bullmore started working as an actor but turned to writing in 1995...
as Ruth. The Old Vic
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
auditorium was transformed to a theatre in the round
Theatre in the round
Theatre-in-the-round or arena theatre is any theatre space in which the audience surrounds the stage area...
, known as the CQS Space, especially for this production.
Broadway
The plays originally premiered on Broadway in 1975 for 69 performances at the Morosco Theatre
Morosco Theatre
The Morosco Theatre was a legitimate theatre located at 217 West 45th Street in the heart of the theater district in midtown-Manhattan, New York, United States....
, directed by Eric Thompson and featuring Richard Benjamin
Richard Benjamin
Richard Benjamin is an American actor and film director. He has starred in a number of productions, including Goodbye, Columbus , based on the novella by Philip Roth, and Westworld .-Life and career:...
, Ken Howard
Ken Howard
Kenneth Joseph "Ken" Howard, Jr. is an American actor, best known for his roles as Thomas Jefferson in 1776 and as basketball coach and former Chicago Bulls player Ken Reeves in the television show The White Shadow...
, Barry Nelson
Barry Nelson
Barry Nelson was an American actor, noted as the first actor to portray Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond.-Early life:...
, Estelle Parsons
Estelle Parsons
Estelle Margaret Parsons is an American theatre, film and television actress and occasional theatrical director.After studying law, Parsons became a singer before deciding to pursue a career in acting. She worked for the television program Today and made her stage debut in 1961...
, Paula Prentiss
Paula Prentiss
Paula Ragusa , better known by her stage name Paula Prentiss, is an American actress well-known for her film roles in Where the Boys Are, Man's Favorite Sport?, The Stepford Wives, What's New Pussycat?, The Black Marble, and The Parallax View and her co-starring role in the television situation...
, and Carole Shelley
Carole Shelley
Carole Shelley is an English actress. Among her many stage roles are the character of Madame Morrible in the original Broadway cast of the musical Wicked.-Life and career:...
.
The 2008 Old Vic production opened on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
with the London cast at the Circle in the Square Theatre
Circle in the Square Theatre
The Circle in the Square Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre in midtown Manhattan on 50th Street in the Paramount Plaza building.The original Circle in the Square was founded by Paul Libin, Theodore Mann and Jose Quintero in 1951 and was located at 5 Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village...
on April 7, 2009, official opening April 23, and scheduled closing on July 25, 2009.
Television adaptation
In 1977 the plays were adapted for the small screen by Thames Television
Thames Television
Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....
. Penelope Keith reprised her role as Sarah. The rest of the cast featured Tom Conti
Tom Conti
Thomas "Tom" Conti is a Scottish actor, theatre director and novelist.-Early life:Born Thomas Conti in Paisley, Renfrewshire, he was brought up Roman Catholic, but he considers himself anti-religious...
as Norman, Penelope Wilton
Penelope Wilton
Penelope Alice Wilton, OBE is an English actress.-Life and career:Penelope Alice Wilton was born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, to a former actress mother and a businessman father. She is a niece of actors Bill Travers and Linden Travers and a cousin of the actor Richard Morant...
as Annie, Richard Briers
Richard Briers
Richard David Briers, CBE is an English actor whose career has encompassed theatre, television, film and radio.He first came to prominence as George Starling in Marriage Lines in the 1960s, but it was in the following decade when he played Tom Good in the BBC sitcom The Good Life that he became a...
as Reg, David Troughton
David Troughton
David Troughton is an English actor, best known for his Shakespearean roles on the British stage.- Biography :David Troughton was born in Hampstead, North London. He comes from a theatrical family: he is the son of Doctor Who actor Patrick Troughton, elder brother of Michael Troughton, and father...
as Tom and Fiona Walker
Fiona Walker
Fiona Walker is an English actress, known for numerous theatre and television roles between the 1960s and 1990s.Her best remembered TV part is poaaibly the role of Agrippina in the BBC adaptation of I, Claudius , directed by Herbert Wise...
as Ruth. The three films were directed by Herbert Wise
Herbert Wise
Herbert Wise is an Austrian-born film and television producer and director.He was born as Herbert Weisz in Vienna, Austria and began his career as a director at Shrewsbury Repertory Company in 1950. He was at Hull Rep and then as Director of Productions at Dundee Rep 1952-55...
and produced by Verity Lambert
Verity Lambert
Verity Ann Lambert, OBE was an English television and film producer. She is best known as the founding producer of the science-fiction series Doctor Who, a programme which has become a part of British popular culture, and for her association with Thames Television...
and David Susskind
David Susskind
David Susskind was a producer of TV, movies, and stage plays and also a pioneer TV talk show host.-Personal:...
. Keith won the BAFTA Television Award for Best Actress for her performance.
Thames Television
Awards and nominations
2009 Tony Awards- Best Revival of a Play (winner)
- Best Direction of a Play- Matthew Warchus (nominated)
- Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play - Stephen Mangan and Paul Ritter (nominated)
- Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play - Jessica Hynes and Amanda Root (nominated)
- Best Scenic Design of a Play - Rob Howell (nominated)
2009 Drama Desk Awards
- Outstanding Ensemble Performance (winner)
- Outstanding Revival of a PlayDrama Desk Award for Outstanding RevivalThe Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival is presented by the Drama Desk, a committee of New York City theatre critics, writers, and editors. It honors the Broadway, off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway, or legitimate not-for-profit theater revival of a production previously staged in New York City.It...
(winner) - Outstanding Director of a Play - Matthew Warchus (winner)
- Outstanding Music in a Play - Gary Yershon (nominated)
- Outstanding Set Design of a Play - Rob Howell (nominated)
- Outstanding Costume Design - Rob Howell (nominated)
New York Drama Critics' Circle
New York Drama Critics' Circle
The New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 24 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. The organization was founded in 1935 at the Algonquin Hotel by a group that included Brooks Atkinson, Walter Winchell, and Robert Benchley...
- Special citation, Matthew Warchus and the cast of The Norman Conquests
Outer Critics Circle Awards
- Outstanding Revival of a Play (winner)
- Outstanding Director of a Play (winner)
- Outstanding Ensemble Performance (winner)