Roger Allam and Dorothy Atkinson lead Alan Ayckbourn’s How the Other Half Loves at The Old Vic, 29 July to 19 September 2026, staged in the round.
Phillip Breen directs How the Other Half Loves at The Old Vic from 29 July to 19 September 2026, with Roger Allam and Dorothy Atkinson at the head of the cast. Ayckbourn’s 1969 farce runs two dinner parties in two houses on one set at the same time, and the play is built so that the audience sees both and the characters see neither. This production returns it to the in-the-round staging it was written for, which The Old Vic converts its auditorium to rather than borrowing another room. That is the whole reason to see this particular revival: the joke is architectural, and it lands differently when the audience is on all four sides of it.