A lecture delivered on October 21, 1987, in Drama, No. 167, 1988, pp. 5–7.

The following excerpt highlights a talk given by Ayckbourn, in which he voices his concerns about the future of the commercial play.

Most of my talks start off with different titles and end up roughly the same—a sort of history of me. Anyway, this time I wanted at least to start differently, even if I end up in the same place. I want to draw your attention to what I consider to be an endangered species; it’s called the good commercial play. There are still a few of us practising it out there, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to develop. There are several reasons why.

The first is down to the fact that a lot of work is being done by community or group theatres—splendid work too, except that what’s happening is that these...