Consuming Passions: In Brief
Consuming Passions
Play Number: 80World Premiere: 12 August 2016
Venue: Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough
Premiere Staging: In-the-round
Published: Samuel French
Other Media: No
Cast: 2m / 2f
Run Time: 1hr
Synopsis: Consuming Passions is a thriller in which a woman believes she overhears a murder being planned in a restaurant. But was what she heard real or all in her mind? And what can she do about it?
- Consuming Passions is Alan Ayckbourn's 80th play.
- The world premiere of Consuming Passions took place in The McCarthy at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, on 12 August 2016.
- It is the only Ayckbourn play to have two named parts / acts; Premonitions & Repercussions. The two parts are considered as a single piece though. As such, in structure, it is best compared to The Revengers' Comedies with two parts which must both be seen and in order to make sense as opposed to a duology (such as House & Garden) or two one act plays connected by an over-arching title (such as Farcicals).
- However, the two parts were individually premiered first in The Bistro at the SJT on 5 August (Premonitions) and 6 August (Repercussions) 2016.
- It is the one of the few Ayckbourn plays whose original production was produced in two venues. When the parts were performed separately, they were performed during lunchtimes in The Bistro at the Stephen Joseph Theatre with the 'complete' play performed in the end-stage The McCarthy at the venue; other plays whose original production played in different venues include Confusions and Farcicals.
- It is described by the playwright as "Hitchcock meets The Twilight Zone".
- The first part / act is set in the Clapham-based Ristorante Calvinu and features the waiters, Aggi and Dinka. Ayckbourn fans will recognise the waiters from Time Of My Life where they worked for restauranteur Calvinu in the northern restaurant, Essa de Calvi.
- It is the shortest of Alan Ayckbourn's full-length plays running at just 1 hour and twenty minutes including an interval.