Early in 1975, I collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber on one of the great musical disasters of the decade, the earlier Mark 1 version of Jeeves. Recoiling from the scathing, occasional downright gleeful criticism we justly deserved, I consoled myself by setting about writing my obligatory yearly Scarborough summer play [where Ayckbourn served as artistic director in Scarborough, England]. In the time honored tradition, I announced the title long before a word was written. The play was thrust into the actors’ hands at the first read through, having been finished the night before and unread ‘til then by any of them.
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