The Musical Jigsaw Play: Facts

Key facts relating to Alan Ayckbourn's The Musical Jigsaw Play.
  • The Musical Jigsaw Play is Alan Ayckbourn's 48th play.
  • The world premiere was held at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round, Scarborough, on 1 December, 1994.
  • Its world premiere production remains the play's only professional production.
  • The Musical Jigsaw Play has been withdrawn from production and has never been published.
  • It was written with the composer John Pattison, who was the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round's Musical Director and who Alan Ayckbourn also worked with on the musicals Dreams From A Summer House and A Word From Our Sponsor. John created the pop-song which runs through the entire piece as well as the incidental music.
  • The play was initially commissioned by the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester; had the production gone ahead there as originally intended it would have joined only four other Ayckbourn plays not to have premiered in Scarborough.
  • The Musical Jigsaw Play is considered one of Alan Ayckbourn's family plays which includes plays such as Mr A's Amazing Maze Plays and Invisible Friends.
  • It is an example of an interactive Ayckbourn play; the audience helps construct the 'musical jigsaw' and it involves much audience participation and singing. The most famous of Alan's interactive plays is Mr A's Amazing Maze Plays.
  • Despite the title and the fact it was written with composer John Pattison, it is not considered one of Alan Ayckbourn's musicals as - essentially - it only contains one song.
  • It was the penultimate Ayckbourn play to be premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round, Scarborough; the final play was A Word From Our Sponsor, a musical created with John Pattison.
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