Articles by Alan Ayckbourn
This article about Wildest Dreams was written by Alan Ayckbourn for a programme for an unrecorded production.Wildest Dreams
It's a play about our daydreams. The dreams each of us has, the illusions each of us holds about other people and, of course, about ourselves.It's about our attempts to escape from the so-called real world. Either into unlikely personal relationships or, occasionally even literally, into fantasy worlds of our own devising where everything can be the way we want it.
But what happens, asks the play, when a hard-nosed, unblinkered, no-nonsense realist steps into your life? A person concerned with how things are - not how they might have been? How do you cope with someone like that - especially someone attractive, young and who appears to love the inner you - how do you cope with her?
Once she's dispensed with your dreams do you follow her into real life? Or retreat into new dreams, ones where she can never hope to follow you?
It's a comedy (of course). It's also a bit sad, a touch frightening and a little weird.
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