This Is Where We Came In: In Brief
This Is Where We Came In
Play Number: 40World Premiere: 4 / 11 August 1990
Venue: Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round, Scarborough
Premiere Staging: In-the-round
Published: Samuel French
Other Media: No
Cast: 5m / 4f
Run Time: 1hr 50m
Synopsis: The Players gather to tell their stories under the watchful eyes of the decrepit Storytellers. Forced to perform twisted fairy-tales, can they escape their servitude with the help of the legendary Flavius?
- This Is Where We Came In is Alan Ayckbourn's 40th play.
- The world premiere - directed by Alan Ayckbourn with Malcom Hebden - was held at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in The Round, Scarborough, on 4 & 11 August 1990.
- The following year, it was presented as a single cohesive play at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round on 21 November 1991, also directed by Alan Ayckbourn.
- This Is Where We Came In was originally written in two parts which could be seen in any order (shown over consecutive Saturday mornings at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round). Alan described it as 'the very first circular adventurous comical mystery play."
- Due to the original production's limited budget (it was initially written as a Saturday morning children's show), the play would be performed on the set of whatever happened to be in repertory at the time - adding an abstract feel to the piece, but also suggesting the adventures of the Players could be taking place anywhere at anytime.
- The original production marked a very rare occurrence of Alan Ayckbourn co-directing a play. He blocked the play with the theatre's Associate Director Malcolm Hebden directing the piece. The most other notable instances of Alan Ayckbourn co-directing a play are the National Theatre's production of Bedroom Farce which he co-directed with Sir Peter Hall and the Stephen Joseph Theatre's world premiere of Orvin - Champion Of Champions, which he co-directed with Laurie Sansom.
- It is one of his 'family' plays; these plays are written with a family audience in mind, but are considered by the playwright to be part of his full-length play canon and as significant in his canon as any of the other plays. Alan Ayckbourn's first family play is considered to be Mr A's Amazing Maze Plays in 1988.
- This Is Where We Came In is considered to be a companion piece to My Very Own Story (1991), another family play in which Alan Ayckbourn questions the conventions of story-telling although in very different ways.
- In the world premiere production and the 1991 revival, Kevin On Keyboards was played by the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round's Musical Director John Pattison, who was present on stage and performed live. In Alan Ayckbourn's 2001 revival, Kevin was puppeteered.
- This Is Where We Came In is considered to be one of Alan Ayckbourn's plays in the fantasy genre (as opposed to, for example, science-fiction, thriller, etc). Other plays in the fantasy genre include Dreams From A Summer House, Orvin - Champion Of Champions and Awaking Beauty.
- Although published as a play text by Samuel French, This Is Where We Came In was also published in the collection Alan Ayckbourn: Plays 2 (Faber).