Donkeys' Years

by Michael Frayn

Michael Frayn's 'gorgeous farce' about a university reunion
premiered thirty years ago at the Globe Theatre, London. Returning to
the West End in a sparkling new production, it remains a classic
comedy.
Twenty years after graduation, six former students return to
their university college for a reunion dinner. Whilst their lives may
have had varying degrees of success, all are connected by a common
past. Once locked in college for the night, the graduates begin to
relive their youth, and old friendships, feuds - and the much-desired
but absurdly proper Master's wife - come tumbling back into the present
. . .
'The show reaches that plateau of comic bliss when it becomes physically impossible to stop laughing' Daily Telegraph

'The West End's summer gets off to an exhilarating start with
the hilarious return of Michael Frayn's comedy Donkeys' Years' Sunday
Express
'All the confidence of a serious comic masterpiece.
Masterclass performances. This is one of the best revivals in the West
End for years. Unmissable!' Sunday Times

Genres: Plays

108 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Michael Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy. His novels, such as Towards the End of the Morning, Headlong and Spies, have also been critical and commercial successes, making him one of the handful of writers in the English language to succeed in both drama and prose fiction. His works often raise philosophical questions in a humorous context. Frayn's wife is Claire Tomalin, the biographer and literary journalist.

Reviews

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lively farce. If some of the stock characters are a bit dated, it’s still fun to see politicians’ ridiculed.

[David]

Read sometime in the 80s after seeing Noises Off for the first time.

[Nick Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

A twenty year reunion at an Oxbridge college. We are introduced to five characters, all, as we should expect, generally successful in their post-University careers. A junior minister in the government, an assistant chief surgeon, a notable civil servant, an author specializing in writing ghost autobiographies, a vicar. They greet each other with stock phrases about how they haven’t changed a bit (the repetitions makes it sound like Pinter translated into English) – and then they try and relive the high jinks of their student years. And there is another who never had a room in college and feels he missed out on student life and now wants to compensate. And there is the research fellow and college lecturer who is younger than the guests, but feels responsible for the outcomes of the high jinks. And there is Lady Driver, wife of the college Master (who is away) and comes to visit an old lover...although, as it turns out, he has not attended the reunion. Donkey’s Years is a farce so once events are set in motion they gain a (comic) life of their own. But farce tends to work better on the stage than on the page. There is a scene, for instance, where Lady Driver is hiding behind a door in someone’s rooms (I won’t try to explain why): every time someone closes the door there is a comic suspense as we wait for someone to turn their head and see her...but then the door will be opened and she will be hidden again...and repeat – in a good production I can imagine this could be an amusing (maybe a hilarious) situation, but in the text it is just a series of stage directions. And, finally, not much happens. The characters leave the play much as they went in, i.e., smug and superior. The exception is the misfit who didn’t live in the college and now wants the chance: he gets punished for his presumption...or maybe for being dull...or maybe for not being smug and superior. Even if Donkey’s Years is much funnier in a production, I’m still not sure that I like it.

[Pers · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this because Jemma Redgrave (my favourite actress) starred in a recent-ish revival of it. Can't say I enjoyed it a huge amount though - too full of testosterone, misogyny and asshole politicians for my taste!

[Alaina Sloo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun farce

[Stuart Aken · Rating 4 out of 5]

First produced at London’s Globe Theatre in July 1976 (coincidentally the year in which my novel, Breaking Faith, is set, and a year of drought and heat wave in UK), this three act play is another demonstration of Frayn’s very British humour.

Although described simply as a play in three acts, this is much more like a farce, in the true British, dare I say English?, tradition. If not actually a farce, it could be taken as a parody of the style. It has all the ingredients: sexual misunderstandings, English sexual reserve, hypocrisy disguised as custom, bedrooms and, of course, the loss of clothes for the female and trousers for the male. I imagine the reader would have to become watcher in order to determine whether this is truly farce or the parody I suspect.

It is, of course, full of humour, poking fun at the stuffed shirts of academia, politicians and the servile subclass of those who serve such pretentions. There is much repetition, which, on the page can be a little wearying but on stage would work a treat, given good actors. The action is confined to a single location for each of the three acts and this serves to emphasise the claustrophobic and sheltered nature of the attitudes encapsulated by the cast. These are people who have no understanding of what most of us would call the ‘real world’. Privileged, spoilt and elevated beyond their natural abilities, they posture and pose their way through life completely unaware of the priorities faced by ordinary people outside their favoured circle.

The thread of lust, disguised as admiration until alcohol allows for honesty, permeates the play. The single female representative is the focus of all male attention, apart, of course, from that of the gay vicar (another stock character of English farce). There is little concern for the damage done to either lives or property by their barbs and actions. The level of achievement for most of the protagonists is well above their natural abilities and is an effective way of pointing out how birth and class can elevate beyond desert.

So, a social statement, but one so well submerged in humour that it may be missed by the less attentive. And the humour is brilliant. It had me laughing out loud and frequently, much to the distress of a fellow worker who shared the small room that serves as a temporary sanctuary from the busy and noisy office in which I perform my day job. The jokes come thick and fast, many derived from simple misunderstandings made clear to the audience but hidden from the characters.

I thoroughly enjoyed this play and would definitely attend a theatre for a performance.

[Melody · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like I need to see this one.