By 2005 Sir Alan Ayckbourn was enjoying renewed national and international acclaim. In the preceding two years, he had written and directed ten plays, including premieres of his work in Scarborough and New York. He had simultaneously been fulfilling the duties of artistic director at the Stephen Joseph Theatre. He was writing within his preferred genre of comedy, tempering it with an ever deepening well of tragedy. This had always been his aim, but now there was a sense of not being constrained by either genre. Every play could go where it needed. The complexity of his last three major plays, Sugar- daddies, Drowning on Dry Land and Private Fears in Public Places, demonstrated that he was on course and promised yet greater work.

In February 2005 Sir Alan Ayckbourn suffered a major stroke. It was a quite catastrophic blow, shocking the theatre world. But he took up the challenge. His driving artistic energy was channelled into his recovery. After a seven-week period in hospital and some further time undergoing treatment, he was holding meetings with theatre staff at his home, determined not to be defeated. It was undoubtedly a hard struggle, but with some unexpected rewards. Perhaps the most perceptive observation on the period of illness came from Alan Strachan, director and friend ‘confinement to a hospital bed brought unfamiliar thoughts and sensations. An observer of others all his life, he could now only observe himself.’ Ayckbourn has been eloquent on the consequences of the stroke and the recovery period too. In particular, he has spoken on numerous occasions of the debt he owed his wife, Heather Stoney, during the convalescent process. She had always acted as his secretary and assistant, but was now seen by her husband with renewed gratitude and affection.

This period of self-assessment changed his output. Some of the plays, post 2006, are more reflective, and focus on the importance of memories. Ayckbourn's work begins to contain themes of reconciliation with loved ones as he discusses love's transient and changing nature. Plays assert the necessity of emotional self-examination and explore the frailty of the happy ending. And they look, too, at romance in the digital world as it changes around us. Some of these ideas had been explored previously but the later plays are the result of the playwright's own brush with mortality.