Awaking Beauty: Quotes By Alan Ayckbourn

"Awaking Beauty, the latest one, I wrote very quickly. We had a tour for A Trip To Scarborough earlier this year and I knew that between leaving the company at Guildford, where the tour began, and going to Bath at the tour's end, I had about two-and-a-half weeks. By the time I arrived at Bath, I had virtually finished it and I said to Denis King, the composer: “I’ve done it” and that was 95% of dialogue and 80% of the lyrics, which rather freaked Denis out: “There’s not very much for me to do then!” But having said that, the lyrics are flexible and I held off it for four weeks, so Denis had a couple of weeks with the script and was able to get some useful ideas down."
(Interview with Simon Murgatroyd, June 2008)

"It's a sly sort of social comedy that starts off as a fairy-tale and rapidly develops into an adult tale that begins at the end of the Sleeping Beauty tale. When Beauty awakes, there is a tussle between the witch and Beauty with sly references to the modern beauty trade and what we now perceive as beauty."
(The Press, 25 July 2008)

"A modern satire on the beauty industry for older children and adults. It's not a show for kids by any means although it starts where Sleeping Beauty left off."
(The Press, 25 July 2008)

"This one is an adult children's show let's say. The piece also has an underlying subject of beauty. We seem to be obsessed with beauty in many of its elements, particularly with the makeover shows. If this fable has a moral it is simply that we should stop worrying about externals and worry more about internals. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
(Scarborough Evening News, 29 November 2008)

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