The Norman Conquests is a trilogy that takes place in a country house where six people spend a weekend together. Each of the three plays is set in a different part of the house: Table Manners in the dining room, Living Together in the living room and Round and Round the Garden in the garden. The trilogy follows events and relationships between two sisters (Annie and Ruth), their brother Reg, Reg’s wife Sarah, their neighbour Tom (who is in love with Annie), and Norman (Ruth’s husband). While Norman is seducing all three women with more or less success in the span of only two days, events constituting a catastrophic weekend of bickering, adultery and constant frustration unfold. Scene after scene, play after play, all three parts of Alan Ayckbourn’s hilariously comic masterpiece come together and reveal the intertwined relationships between the characters, as well as their hidden  secrets and desires.

In The Norman Conquests, Ayckbourn deals with domestic issues, dysfunctional families and misadventures in middle-class marriages. Although on the surface, it seems to be just a witty succession of simple, funny and easily recognizable domestic upheaval; under the surface, it is much more. Just as Ayckbourn said in his interview with The Guardian, “My West End producer used to say to me, ‘we’re in the giggle business, darling.’ And I’d sort of agree with him, but while I’m all for giggles, I’d also hope that some of what we do would be remembered for a little bit more than just that.” …

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Six characters. One weekend. Three views of the shifting perspectives of two unhappy married couples and two lonely singles reacting to each other in three different parts of the same property (the dining room, the living room and the backyard).

Alan Ayckbourn, who wrote the trilogy of comedies comprising The Norman Conquests in one week in May 1973, says that each of the group stands alone and may be seen in any order (though each of the three should be seen first!)

An ambitious project for playwright, director, cast and crew, The Norman Conquests has been well received almost every time it has been presented during the 40+ years since Ayckbourn wrote the three plays simultaneously and in parallel. By, for example, writing the second scene of each of the comedies at the same time, he could refer in the segment set in the dining room to the amount of alcohol being consumed in the living room and its effects on the title character.

Table Manners, which opens the Seven Thirty Productions/Plosive Productions co-pro of The Norman Conquests, heads towards a nightmarish family dinner delivering sniping and discontent as the main course. So horrible are the relationships that you have to laugh or be swept away with the underlying misery. …

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