Ayckbourn's points of departure are most unprepossessing. Not for him the seedy ferment of an angry terraced house, but rather the sleepy atmosphere of a semi-detached, or the sluggish isolation of Annie's decaying mansion in The Norman Conquests. Nothing whatsoever seems to have happened or be likely to happen in these venues of mediocrity except the abrasive friction of quotidian boredom and the grinding noise of wear and tear. Out of this unattractive premise and featureless premises, Ayckbourn spins his cobweb of interrelated combinations. Whether or not one accepts him as a serious playwright, there can be little doubt that he stands peerless as an artificer of plots…. The Norman Conquests can be read either as three autonomous two-act four-scene plays, all dealing with the same characters and the same plot, and to be enjoyed on different evenings; or as a whole englobing experience including six acts and...