The Norman Conquests
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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 more or less unhappy 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, however - 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 and Michael Gambon as Tom. Keith and Kendal later starred together in the television situation comedy The Good Life to great acclaim, in roles arguably similar to their roles in Conquests. Penelope Keith reprised her role as Sarah in the televised version, filmed in 1978, in which Tom Conti played Norman, Penelope Wilton played Annie, and Richard Briers played Reg.
