A Chorus of Disapproval

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Previewed 17 September 2012, Opened 27 September 2012, Closed 5 January 2013 at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London

A major revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy play A Chorus of Disapproval in London starring Rob Brydon, Nigel Harman and Ashley Jensen and directed by Trevor Nunn.

"A brilliantly imaginative and funny comedy of life, sex and sadness in a small town amateur operatic society" The Observer

The Pendon Amateur Light Operatic Society's production of The Beggar's Opera is going off the rails, that is until a handsome but shy young widower Guy joins the group. An instant hit with the company's ferociously zealous director Dafydd and the show's leading ladies, including Dafydd's wife Hannah, Guy soon gets more than he bargained for as he discovers that all the best action happens off-stage. Classic songs fill the air as the drama on stage is mirrored by the romantic rivalry and small town squabbles causing a stir in the wings of this ambitious local show.

"A serious comic masterpiece; brilliantly constructed, ruthlessly observant, hilarious, and hard as nails" The Sunday Times

The cast for this production of A Chorus of Disapproval in London stars Rob Brydon as 'Dafydd', Nigel Harman as 'Guy' and Ashley Jensen as 'Hannah along with Teresa Banham, Daisy Beaumont, Georgia Brown, Rob Compton, Matthew Cottle and Steven Edis. The production is directed by Trevor Nunn with designs by Rob Jones, lighting by Tim Mitchell, sound by Fergus O'Hare and musical direction by Steven Edis.

"This blissful evening begins with a flash-forward finale: bad wigs, a dodgy dance routine and wobbly scenery giving way to applause, hugs and a darkening stage. The rest is an explanation of why the leading man can't join the cast at the pub. Like the Mafia, the Pendon Amateur Light Operatic Society does not forgive. Early on, one of the less-gifted cast wobbles through the 18th-century line from John Gay's The Beggar's Opera: 'Be the author who he will, we push his play as far as it will go.' Trevor Nunn does just that in this beguiling revival of a 1984 comedy by Alan Ayckbourn. Rarely performed professionally, this is one of Ayckbourn's finest... There are plenty of stage in-jokes, but there's exuberant incidental comedy too... Ayckbourn knows just how long to milk a running joke and when to drop it, and has sexual misunderstanding down to a painfully fine art. The lighting-plot scene combines sadness and hilarity fit to choke you both ways." The Times

"A magnificent comedy: symmetrically shaped, psychologically acute and painfully, heart-breakingly funny" The Guardian

Alan Ayckbourn's A Chorus of Disapproval had it's London Premiere at the National Theatre's Olivier Theatre in August 1985 were the cast featured Bob Peck, Michael Gambon and Imelda Staunton, this production then transferred to the Lyric Theatre in the West End in June 1986 were it run for nine months.

"A Chorus of Disapproval had a curious start," explains playwright Alan Ayckbourn. "I wanted to write a play about an operatic society. My first idea was to pen something for a large cast, using professional principals and a supporting cast of dozens of amateur singers. The latter would be seated in the auditorium, to all appearance like members of the audience, but they would from time to time during the action stand up and sing some linking comment or other like an operatic Greek chorus. I planned to base the play around a presumed production of The Vagabond King... Several things conspired to thwart the original idea. The Rudolph Friml Estate, fearing for their play, refused to release the rights. For which I don't blame them one bit. Simultaneously, those members of the local Scarborough Operatic Society whom I had approached seemed reluctant to accept anything but leading roles, for which I didn't blame them either; and finally Equity declared the whole idea of including amateurs in this way unacceptable. Which forced me into swift solutions, all of them, it transpired, blessings in disguise. First I decided to work with an entirely professional company and thus with a much smaller cast; sensible and far more economic. Secondly, to avoid further copyright problems, I found an author who had been dead so long that he and his relatives no longer cared. Which lead me to a musical play I greatly admired and had always wanted to produced, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera. Which in turn provided the missing piece to the whole venture. Gay's play had a plot which echoed almost perfectly the one I intended to write and provided the perfect mirror image on which to build my own dramatic structure.”

A Chorus of Disapproval in London at the Harold Pinter Theatre previewed from 17 September 2012, opened on 27 September 2012 and closes on 5 January 2013