Drowning On Dry Land: In Brief
Drowning On Dry Land
Play Number: 66World Premiere: 4 May 2004
Venue: Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough
Premiere Staging: In-the-round
Published: Samuel French
Other Media: No
Cast: 4m / 3f
Run Time: 2hr
Synopsis: Charlie has become famous for his extraordinary lack of achievement. But his celebrity life comes crashing down when an investigative journalist and an amorous clown prove how fickle fame can be.
- Drowning On Dry Land is Alan Ayckbourn's 66th play.
- The world premiere - directed by Alan Ayckbourn - was held at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, on 4 May 2004.
- The London premiere was held at the Jermyn Street Theatre, London, on 23 February 2011.
- The title of the play came from an old English proverb: "It is folly to drown on dry land."
- The play was in part inspired by the Piers Morgan 2003 documentary The Importance Of Being Famous.
- The play's original title was Am I Famous Yet?
- Drowning On Dry Land is Alan Ayckbourn's second play to deal with media and celebrity, the first being Man Of The Moment (1988).
- It is one of Alan Ayckbourn's garden-set plays; other notable garden-set plays include Just Between Ourselves, Joking Apart, Woman In Mind, Garden and Snake In The Grass.
- It is the only Ayckbourn play to feature a court-room scene (or its nearest garden-set equivalent!) when Charlie and Marsha's lawyers lock horns over Marsha's claim of attempted rape in Act II, Scene 1.
- The ending of the play is left open to interpretation by the playwright. Central to the play is a folly, which appears to defy logic and has no means of getting to the top. At the play's climax, Charlie enters the folly and - impossibly - emerges at the top. The playwright feels it is up to the audience to come to their own conclusions about the significance of this.
- Although published as a play text by Samuel French, Drowning On Dry Land was also published in the collection Alan Ayckbourn: Plays 3 (Faber).