"In this play, Annie has arranged to spend an illicit weekend with her sister Ruth's husband Norman, and for this reason, suitably disguised, has asked her elder brother Reg and his wife Sarah to look after their widowed mother and the house. As it happens the seduction, thought or planned, by each of the six characters never takes place either"--Publisher's website.
A comic trilogy details the amorous exploits of Norman, assistant librarian, whose one aim is to make the women in his life happy - these women being three sisters, one of them his wife. Each play stands on its own yet is interlocked with the others.
The Normans were a relatively short-lived cultural and political phenomenon. The emerged early in the tenth century and had disappeared off the map by the mid-thirteenth century. Yet in that time they had conquered England, southern Italy and Sicily, and had established outposts in North Africa and in Levant. Having traced the formation of the Duchy of Normandy, Trevor Rowley draws on the latest archaeological and historical evidence to examine how the Normans were able to conquer and dominate significant parts of Europe. In particular he looks at their achievements in England and Italy and their claim to a permanent legacy, as witnessed in feudalism, in castles, churches and settlement and in place-names. But equally from the political stage. The reality is that, even within this short time-span, the Normans changed as time and place dictated from Norse invaders to Frankish crusaders to Byzantine monarchs to Feudal overlords. In the end their contribution to medieval culture was largely as a catalyst for other, older traditions.
There are no less than eight intimate exchanges in this ingenious tour de farce and each has two different endings; you can see Intimate Exchanges sixteen times and not see the same play twice! And one actor and one actress play all 10 characters. This is Ayckbourn's most unusual look yet at the foibles of middle class living.-1 woman, 1 man
Compared to the natural world's elaborate "buddy" system, humans are curiously detached. While there are parasites, and even parasites who prey on parasites--witness the astounding amount of give-and-take amid Earth's tooth-and-nail struggles.
Senlac (Book One) is the first volume of an epic, a two-part, historical novel that brings to life the turbulent period leading to the Norman and Viking invasions and conquest of England in 1066.
