''Donkeys' Years'' is a play by English playwright

Michael Frayn Michael Frayn, FRSL (; born 8 September 1933) is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce ''Noises Off'' and the dramas ''Copenhagen (play), Copenhagen'' and ''Democracy (play), Democracy''. Frayn's novel ...

that premiered at the

Globe Theatre The Globe Theatre was a Theater (structure), theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 at Southwark, close to the south bank of the Thames, by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men. It was ...

, London, in 1976. The play is a West End

farce Farce is a comedy that seeks to entertain an audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd, and improbable. Farce is also characterized by heavy use of physical comedy, physical humor; the use of delibe ...

, a genre that Frayn parodied five years later in his

play within a play A story within a story, also referred to as an embedded narrative, is a literary device in which a character within a story becomes the narrator of a second story (within the first one). Multiple layers of stories within stories are sometime ...

"Nothing On" from ''

Noises Off ''Noises Off'' is a 1982 farce by the English playwright Michael Frayn. Frayn conceived the idea in 1970 while watching from the wings a performance of '' The Two of Us'', a farce that he had written for Lynn Redgrave. He said, "It was funni ...

''. In ''Donkeys' Years'' six former students spend the weekend at their old university college for their 25th year reunion. The wife of the Master of the college becomes locked within its walls for the night, supplying the material for a classic

bedroom farce A bedroom farce or sex farce is a type of light comedy focusing on the sexual pairings and recombinations of characters as they move through improbable plots and slamming doors. Overview Georges Feydeau plays, presented in Paris in the 1890s, a ...

. A Government minister is placed in a series of embarrassing positions. The play won the 1976

Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play The Noël Coward Award for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play is an annual award presented by the Society of London Theatre in recognition of achievements in commercial London theatre. The awards were established as the Society of West End Theatre ...

. The play featured

Penelope Keith Dame Penelope Anne Constance Keith (''née'' Hatfield; born 2 April 1940) is an English actress and presenter, active in film, radio, stage and television and primarily known for her roles in the British sitcoms '' The Good Life'' and '' To the ...

, who subsequently won the 1976 Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance. The play was revived in 2006 at the

Comedy Theatre The Harold Pinter Theatre, known as the Comedy Theatre until 2011,

References

Further reading