The Inside Outside Slide Show: History

The Inside Outside Slide Show was Alan Ayckbourn's first attempt at Saturday morning theatre for youngsters. The light piece was designed to offer entertainment for youngsters at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round and whose plot cleverly involves and integrates projected slides. It has only ever been produced once.

There is a cast of just two, but the slides were populated by many of that season's company, who were photographed at a local stately home, Wykeham Abbey, for the play by the renowned theatre photographer John Haynes, which Alan had story-boarded in advance. Although a popular show, the play has rarely been revived and has never been published.

The plot sees Mrs Grimshaw trying to give a very serious illustrated lecture on how Edwardians used to live. But her assistant Clyde has different ideas, and not only gets everything wrong, but ends up falling into the slide projector in pursuit of his true love.

It is believed just one manuscript for The Inside Outside Slide Show still survives, held in the Ayckbourn Archive at the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York. The manuscript had previously been thought lost but a surviving copy was discovered by Alan Ayckbourn's Archivist, Simon Murgatroyd, during early 2020 alongside photo-copies of Alan's storyboards for the photographs, show and rehearsal reports. Sadly, the actual slides and photographs do not appear to have survived in the Stephen Joseph Theatre's archive.

Article by Simon Murgatroyd. Copyright: Haydonning Ltd. Please do not reproduce without permission of the copyright holder.

The Plays for Children & Young People sections of this website are supported by Brett Bayne