A Small Family Business

Well, that's one down, isn't it? Nine to go. Next! Thou shalt not kill. What about that then? Let's have a crack at that one next, shall we?

Jack McCracken is a man of principle until, moments after taking over his father-in-law's business, he discovers his extended family to be thieves and adulterers, operating a network of racketeering from their suburban homes. Rampant self-interest and comic hysteria take over as Jack succumbs.

A Small Family Business premiered at the National Theatre, London, 1987, and won the Evening Standard Award for Best Play.

'This play offers a devastating assault on the way the entrepreneurial values we were taught to admire in the eighties lead ultimately to fraud, theft, self-deceit, even homicide. It is the modern equivalent of An Inspector Calls - only, being Ayckbourn, far funnier. It argues just as passionately as the work of more overtly political writers that there is such a thing as society.' Guardian