Donkeys' Years

Twenty years after graduation, six former students return to their college for a reunion dinner in this riotous farce which takes on the ridiculousness of English propriety while this middle-aged group ponders their varying degrees of success and the role of predestination and free-will in their life choices.In classic bedroom farce form, the group gets locked into the college overnight along with the much-desired head master's wife and a cabinet minister. The graduates begin to relive their youth, old friendships, feuds, and passions. They and their high profile guests are flung into one embarrassing situation after another as they chase in and out of multiple bedroom doors, some in their underwear, with misunderstandings and mistaken identities- all the staples of classic farce, but with Frayn's writing the repartee raises the genre to new heights of subtly and wit. Michael Fraynis the author of ten novels, including the bestsellingHeadlong, aNew York TimesEditor's Choice selection and a Booker Prize finalist, andSpies, which won Britain's Whitbread Fiction Award. He has written fourteen plays, among themNoises OffandCopenhagen, which won three Tony Awards in 1999. He lives in London.Twenty years after graduation, six former students return to their college for a reunion dinner in this riotous farce which takes on the ridiculousness of English propriety while this middle-aged group ponders their varying degrees of success and the role of predestination and free-will in their life choices. In classic bedroom farce form, the group gets locked into the college overnight along with the much-desired head master's wife and a cabinet minister. The graduates begin to relive their youth, old friendships, feuds, and passions. They and their high profile guests are flung into one embarrassing situation after another as they chase in and out of multiple bedroom doors, some in their underwear, with misunderstandings and mistaken identities--all the staples of classic farce, but with Frayn's writing the repartee raises the genre to new heights of subtly and wit."The show reaches that plateau of comic bliss when it becomes physically impossible to stop laughing."--The Daily Telegraph(UK) "The West End's summer gets off to an exhilarating start with the hilarious return of Michael Frayn's comedyDonkeys' Years."--Sunday Express "All the confidence of a serious comic masterpiece. Masterclass performances. This is one of the best revivals in the West End for years. Unmissable!"--TheSunday Times(London)

Michael Frayn's work for the stage includes Alphabetical Order, Make and Break and Noises Off, all of which received Best Comedy of the Year awards, while Benefactors was named Best Play of the Year. His other works include Democracy and Copenhagen. He has translated Chekhov's four last plays and is also a novelist and recipient of the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel for Spies.