Orvin - Champion of Champions: In Brief
Orvin - Champion of Champions
Play Number: 64World Premiere: 8 August 2003
Venue: Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough
Premiere Staging: In-the-round
Published: Faber
Other Media: Television; Radio
Cast: 15m / 6f
Run Time: 1hr 35m
Synopsis: A musical written with composer Denis King. An inept squire's actions lead to the death of the Kingdom's champion and the Gods decree Orvin must take his place and become a champion to thwart the plans of an evil prince.
Note: A musical written with the composer Denis King.
- Orvin - Champions Of Champions is Alan Ayckbourn's 64th play.
- The world premiere - directed by Alan Ayckbourn - was held at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, on 8 August 2003.
- The play was commissioned by the National Youth Music Theatre and marked the first time Alan had collaborated with the company.
- It has - to date - the single largest cast of any play written by Alan Ayckbourn with 21 principal roles and a vocal chorus (plus extras if need be!)
- It was written with the composer Denis King, who Alan Ayckbourn has also worked with on the musicals Whenever and Awaking Beauty.
- Alan Ayckbourn has noted that its influences were as diverse as the television series Blackadder, Laurence Olivier's film version of Hamlet, Danny Kaye's movie The Court Jester, Ridley Scott's epic Gladiator and Basil Rathbone!
- It is one of his 'family' plays; these plays are written with a family audience in mind, but are considered by the playwright to be part of his full-length play canon and as significant in his canon as any of the other plays. Alan Ayckbourn's first family play is considered to be Mr A's Amazing Maze Plays in 1988.
- It is one of several plays of Alan Ayckbourn which can be broadly said to be part of the fantasy genre (as opposed to, for example, the science fiction or supernatural genres). Other plays include Dreams From A Summer House, The Champion Of Paribanou and Awaking Beauty.
- Alan Ayckbourn co-directed the play with the Stephen Joseph Theatre's Associate Director Laurie Sansom, who went on to be appointed the Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Scotland in 2012.
- It was the final production staged by the National Youth Music Theatre before it was declared insolvent (it later transpired there were substantial financial issues with the NYMT for several years prior to Orvin). The company would subsequently be relaunched in 2005.