With 2025 now in full swing The Little Theatre in Leicester present their final production of their 2024-25 Autumn/Winter season with a staging of Alan Ayckbourn’s It Could Be Any One Of Us. The production runs from Monday 20th until Saturday 25th January.
Living in a windswept country house is a larger-than-life family of failures: an amateur detective, who has never solved a case, a composer, whose works have never been performed, an unpublished writer, a struggling artist, and a dysfunctional teenager.
Their wrangling over a will leads to murder, but the victim is not who it should be and almost everyone, even the amateur sleuth, has equal motivation and opportunity. All is revealed with tongue-in-cheek humour and ironic comment.
Ayckbourn’s thirtieth play has entertained audiences with its preposterous plot ever since its first performance in 1983. The production is directed by Mary Jones and staged by the hard working team at the theatre.
Ahead of the run we caught up with Director Mary Jones to learn more about the production.
Having been an avid follower of Sir Alan Ayckbourn's plays for 50 years I have often been intrigued by the way he likes to challenge his actors during performances.
I have admired so many actors over the years performing his plays where a chance or random element is an essential part of the play. They have begun each evening's performance not knowing which parts of the script may have to be delivered or cut that evening, or indeed sometimes which scenes are to be played in which order.
This is one such play. During a brief card game, the person who draws a particular card will become the murderer that evening.
So, there could be a choice of endings to the play, with actors adjusting the script accordingly. This is where Ayckbourn is the master: it may sound difficult, but he writes in a way that makes it easily accessible. Just altering the occasional look, cutting a few lines of dialogue in some places and adding a few in others towards the end of the play, makes it all work.
Choosing an Ayckbourn play to include in The Little Theatre season is not easy with a choice of 90 plays. Even his 91st play is already written ready to be premiered this summer. This is one of his earlier plays written over 40 years ago, but it is just as entertaining as it was when it was first performed. And it is good to be able to present one that has not usually been chosen. This tongue in cheek whodunit seemed a perfect choice, for a cold, dull January evening.
I really enjoy the opportunity to direct talented cast members who can gradually bring to life the words on a page. I always begin with a vision of how I would like the play to be, but then we spend 6 weeks together, conquering the script in the first couple of weeks, then exploring how to deliver lines to best effect, experimenting with different looks, moves, timings or inflections to get the most out of the written word.
It is so satisfying to watch the end product and see the audience reaction, feeling that you had a hand in what has been achieved; and what has hopefully given an audience a good couple of hours away from their daily routine.
Come along to The Little Theatre, January 20-25, 2025, for an enjoyable evening of testing your brain cells about who could possibly be the murderer, with some enjoyable fun along the way. But don’t take us too seriously, this a tongue-in-cheek whodunit!
Tickets for It Could Be Any One Of Us are available from https://thelittletheatre.co.uk/. You can also phone the box office on 01162551302.
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