SOURCE: “Reception of and Critical Response to Botho Strauss and Alan Ayckbourn in Britain and Germany,” in History of European Ideas, Vol. 20, No. 1-3, 1995, pp. 43-7.

In the following essay, Rorrison compares and contrasts Botho Strauss of Germany and Ayckbourn of Britain, concluding that while both are successful in their own theatrical cultures, it may be difficult to become mainstream in both.

Botho Strauss and Alan Ayckbourn both write comedies, both are prolific, Ayckbourn rather more so than Strauss, though Strauss as a writer of fiction and essays has the wider range. Both are commentators on contemporary manners, both are satirists of the consumer society, and both are widely performed in their respective countries and abroad. Of each it has been claimed that it is to their plays social historians of future centuries will turn to discover how we live now. They use the same material much of...