“I felt Ayckbourn was digging a little too deep into his characters. A joke’s a joke, and, for the audiences the Library Theatre attracts, shouldn’t be taken too far. Sad though it may be to admit it, they don’t want to be made to think.” Scarborough Evening News, 23 June 1973

“I would hate people to think that having seen The Normans on TV they had seen The Normans.” Alan Ayckbourn

In the kitchen at night alone

How exhilarating when certain missing links finally emerge from their hiding places, when important insights with no connection to the trivial context in which they appear suddenly materialise! This happened to me one night as I found myself in the kitchen prowling for something edible. Finding nothing of particular interest I ended up munching past sell-by date biscuits with butter. Then all of a sudden, whilst chewing unenthusiastically and with my mind a thousand miles away, it dawned on me that beneath the social veil of wit and pleasantry we are all raving lunatics (i.e. that the wit is the veil), that perfectly sensible and civilised people, when exposed to a certain amount of pressure, turn into savage brutes. And if this is so, I surmised, it seems to follow that there is no escape from war and strife and pain and suffering, indeed, that civilisation as we know it is just anarchy temporarily tamed and that conformity, convention and custom are but brittle shields against vile forces beyond our rational control.

A gloomy insight perhaps but what else to be expected in the kitchen at night in the sole company of stale biscuits? Nonetheless, it was an insight that I welcomed a lot as it helped explain something that had been puzzling me for some time. It made me understand better why the English playwright Alan Ayckbourn wrote The Norman Conquests, that is, why he went to all the trouble piecing together such an intricate trilogy which prima facie consists of nothing but the most trivial small-talk and chatter. The answer is, or at least that was my intuition, that he wrote it not simply in order to amuse and entertain—although I admit this could have sufficed as a motive since the play really is hilariously funny—but in order to tell us something important about human nature. And he did it by putting the forces of the id on display where one would least expect to find it: in a beautiful and tranquil English country house.

… it dawned on me that beneath the social veil of wit and pleasantry we are all raving lunatics …

Why would he do such a thing? Well, perhaps because he has an artistic vocation that beckons him to examine everyday life and events so that a deeper truth may emerge? I ventured the guess that at some point in his life Ayckbourn must have had more or less the same insight as I had this night in the kitchen, with or without the stale biscuits.

What is The Norman Conquests?

The Norman Conquests is a theatre drama in three episodes, written by the famous Yorkshire playwright Alan Ayckbourn in the beginning of the 1970s. It was adapted for television in the mid-seventies by Thames Television directed by Herbert Wise and produced by Verity Lambert and David Susskind. It premièred on ITV channel in October 1977.

Each two-hour long episode depicts the same six persons during the same weekend in the same country house but on different locations in- and outside the house. The first episode takes place in the dining room (“Table Manners”), in the second we find ourselves in the kitchen (“Living Together”), and the third episode depicts the garden action (“Round and round the garden”). The parts interconnect so that, for instance, when a person leaves the kitchen for the dining room in episode two he enters the dining room in episode one. Even so the episodes may be viewed independently of each other.

This is the plot: Annie lives alone in the family’s house in the country with her bed-ridden mother (whom we never meet). Her only friend is Tom, an unexciting local vet whom she befriends in a rather Platonic way. This weekend she is supposed to go on a holiday so her brother Reg and his wife Sarah come down to nurse mother while she is away. What they don’t know is that Annie has planned a “dirty weekend” with her libidinous brother-in-law Norman, married to Annie’s sister Ruth. The scam is soon revealed thanks to the ever-meddlesome Sarah, and the escapade is averted to Norman’s huge disappointment. He thus spends the rest of the weekend sulking, drinking and wreaking havoc with the emotional lives of the others. Reg and Sarah are upset too having come all the way down from the city only to find that they are not needed after all. Then Ruth, Norman’s wife, puts in an appearance. She tries to talk some sense into Norman but succeeds only in creating further turbulence.

TV or theatre?

I keep asking myself: is it the play itself that fascinates me, or is it rather the actors playing in it, that is to say the actors participating in the classic 1977 Thames production (the only TV adaptation of the play so far), in other words: Tom Conti as Norman, Penelope Wilton as Annie, Penelope Keith as Sarah, Richard Briers as Reg, David Troughton as Tom and Fiona Walker as Ruth? I suspect the latter. I have never actually read the play or seen it performed at a theatre, but I have watched the Thames production many times, so many in fact that I have come to adopt some of the actor’s gestures, attitudes and phrases as my own; it has become a part of my life. Come to think of it, I probably don’t even want another reference for fear that it might bring the Thames production off the pedestal and make it inferior or less unique by comparison. In short: for me the Thames production is the play, and the play is the Thames production.

… for me the Thames production is the play, and the play is the Thames production.

It is interesting therefore that the author himself once commented that “I would hate people to think that having seen The Normans on TV they had seen The Normans.” Naturally, from the author’s vantage point, this must be so. The theatre defines his habitus, the TV studio does not. The theatre is his “world”—not man but theatre is for him the measure of all things!—and he hates to see his literary off-spring being forced to comply with limitations so severe that their entire personalities are at stake. And of course he hates it even more when viewers come to regard these cardboard figures as the real thing. This is analogous to hearing musicians complain that their music sounds infinitely better live than through a squalid headset plugged to an MP3 player. And they are right, of course, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that one cannot have aesthetic, or philosophical, experiences through such media, however impaired.

I remember listening to an orchestral piece by Bach via a midi file on a computer with no sound card installed. The sound was truly awful, like squeezing a symphony orchestra through a telephone ear piece. Nevertheless, the meaning and the structure of the music were still crystal clear, in fact, clearer than on a live performance since there was no aesthetic dimension to distract the listener from the contrapuntal, almost mathematical construction of the work. Like reading one of Evelyn Waugh’s never-ending sentences, word by word, line by line, instead of having it beautifully read out loud by Jeremy Irons. Indeed, because of the sterile clarity of the midi file, and despite the miserable quality of the audio output, I was moved to tears. In other words, the computer file gave me an aesthetic as well as a philosophical or intellectual experience.

As soon as the work goes public it takes on a life of its own, wholly detached from its creator.

While not stretching these analogies too far, suffice to say that my habitus, as far as this essay is concerned, is defined by the TV medium, not the theatre. Maybe my following observations and reflections therefore have got nothing to do with the “real” Norman Conquests as seen by the author (and his fellow theatre-goers)? Maybe my comments are irrelevant? Maybe. But who defines “reality”? It is useful here to bear in mind the so-called “intentional fallacy:” that one should not be limited by the author’s own intentions when contemplating and criticising a work of art. As soon as the work goes public it takes on a life of its own, wholly detached from its creator.

So whether the master hates it or not, here we go.

Annie & Tom

Tom, the local vet, is a far cry from the smug Norman, who is the sanguine Don Giovanni that Annie so desperately craves in order to bring some gaiety into her dull life. Tom is the exact opposite of Norman. He is the quiet and polite neighbour that pops by for a cup of tea and a chat every now and then. However, since he is the only person who keeps visiting her she is a little afraid of losing him, despite being utterly bored by his down-to-earth-predictability and general lack of pizazz. Besides, Annie and Tom are quite similar in a number of ways: they are both practical and unsentimental, rather conventional and undemanding, low-key and introvert. They are both basically loners. We are not surprised when Tom tells us that he prefers animals to people. Probably Annie does too although for different reasons.

Still, Annie has something that Tom is devoid of, she is filled up with emotions the containment and suppression of which torment her. Tom seems to have no particular feelings at all, or he is too unconscious to notice. He is emotionally and socially numb just like his patients, the cows and the horses; or perhaps this numbness is the reason why he chose to work with animals in the first place. Either way, the numbness will soon prove fatal in his interactions with Annie and the rest of the family. It could probably be argued that Tom and Annie are typical victims of traditional British culture which promotes decorum and propriety and has a leaning towards stoicism and the repression of feelings and that this is the real reason why they fail to connect. But even though this may be part of the explanation it is, as we shall see, not the whole explanation.

Tom is a social illiterate with zero emotional intelligence.

Tom comes across as stupid or slow as he seems totally unable to interpret non-verbal signals and metalinguistic communication such as irony. He is a one-dimensional person. For him body language and pragmatic ambiguities either play no part in his interactions or he misinterprets them fatally when he tries to play along. He encounters every statement with the same unimaginative sincerity. For him everything is either positive or negative; he is either “on-heat” or “off-heat” just like his animals. In this respect, at least, he is not very British (or perhaps he is?).

Tom is a social illiterate with zero emotional intelligence. But he is no psychopath therefore; he is far too innocent for that; it is too deeply ingrained in him that the product of all social interaction should be consensus, mutual understanding and friendliness. In this respect, he is most certainly British. Tom is a thoroughly “nice” person who would hate nothing more than being the instigator of “not-nice” situations and constellations. Ironically, it is Tom—despite being the one who most emphatically tries to understand and avoid every misapprehension—who misunderstands and misapprehends the most and thereby creates more misery than “mutual understanding” and “friendliness.”

Annie shares none of these traits. She is a sensitive and perceptive woman. But her sensitivity, once perhaps an asset, has turned into pathological nervousness. It is true, some highly-strung people are amusing, charming and even successful because of their creative expressiveness. Not so with Annie. Here is a vibrant girl who has withered prematurely, a relatively young woman with her life already behind her, that is if she has ever truly lived. Probably not. The terribly exciting prospect of a “dirty weekend” with the adventurous and beguiling Norman breathes an illusion of hope into her bleak existence, that is, until Sarah comes along and puts an end to all promiscuous expectations. After a few minutes alone with the dragon of propriety Annie lays the cards on the table in a fit of guilt and shame.

Here is a vibrant girl who has withered prematurely, a relatively young woman with her life already behind her, that is if she has ever truly lived.

Annie’s problem is that she is discontent with her lot in life: slaving for mother and taking care of the family home. She finds it all meaningless and it therefore becomes harder and harder for her to conceal her growing bitterness. This is because Annie is the proverbial “good girl,” the obedient daughter who does exactly what mummy tells her to do. The problem is, of course, that she has forgotten how to be good to herself, how to listen to her own thoughts and pay attention to her own needs and desires. Until she learns how to do this she will remain tormented by not knowing what it really means to live, by not having found a meaning of life.

Though abundant in feelings Annie is certainly no philosopher. As this is no philosophical play, at least not on the surface level. Instead we are invited to watch the stages in Annie’s psychological meltdown: her increasingly violent body language, the deteriorating quality and tone of her remarks, her ever more nervous laughter, the smile in her pretty eyes fading away, her admirable British reticence degenerating into Mediterranean type tantrums.

… her admirable British reticence degenerating into Mediterranean type tantrums.

Annie is in constant pain and from the very outset we get the impression, or rather the illusion, that eventually, by the end of the drama, she will somehow manage to give birth to her new self. However, she remains in labour throughout the play, and for a very good reason. For Ayckbourn, Annie’s creator, there is no such thing as rebirth of the self, no redemption with the promise of bringing the suffering to an end. There are, however, many modes of suffering and for Annie the likely prospect, her destiny as it were, is the meaningless and never-ending labour in a life of dreary convention and duty.

Norman & Ruth

Norman is the centre of the play, the amoral hub around which everything else revolves. Norman’s eruptive spontaneity is the motor of all events. The “dirty weekend” was of course Norman’s idea, not Annie’s, and it is Norman who tries to convince and re-convince the ever-doubting Annie, not the other way around. After Sarah makes Annie crack Norman puts heavy pressure on poor Annie in an attempt to make her change her mind about not going shamelessly taking advantage of her increasing weakness and fragility.

The Norman character always reminds me of Henrik Ibsen’s character Peer Gynt: the enticing storyteller, the illusionist, the seducer, but also the well-meaning but clumsy spider who, willingly or rather unwittingly, gets perfectly innocent people entangled in his web of deceit and make-believe.

The Norman character always reminds me of Henrik Ibsen’s character Peer Gynt: the enticing storyteller, the illusionist, the seducer, but also the well-meaning but clumsy spider who, willingly or rather unwittingly, gets perfectly innocent people entangled in his web of deceit and make-believe. Peer is the unconscious director who insists on casting his own puppet show having no idea wherefore he is actually doing it. There is no conscious purpose in Peer’s life. Peer, and Norman, are more to be likened with blind, elementary (sexual) forces lacking both foresight or hindsight and therefore experience neither personal limits nor responsibility. They are in a way exculpated as per default.

“All I wanted was to make you happy”, a befuddled Norman cries out loud at the end of the garden episode (hence at the end of the trilogy), begging for the other’s good-will despite all the damage he has inflicted upon them during this extraordinary weekend. However, this is nothing but yet another feeble attempt to vindicate himself having by now been thoroughly exposed as the spineless opportunist that he is. All Norman really wants is of course to make himself happy and now that the others have realised as much they have no qualms about leaving him to spin in his own mess.

All Norman really wants is of course to make himself happy and now that the others have realised as much they have no qualms about leaving him to spin in his own mess.

There is a lesson to be learned here. Regardless of whether it is one’s own or the other’s happiness one is intent on increasing one should always be prepared for a correspondent increase in suffering. There is no happiness without suffering. Thus it is not only Annie, Sarah and Ruth who suffer more because of Norman’s tomfoolery; Norman suffers more too. Without suffering there would be no growth, no development, no fruitful labour. Norman’s clowning, at least at its most intelligent, makes the others see themselves from a different angle which naturally creates uneasiness and sometimes anger. Nobody is particularly eager to face one’s less admirable sides, let alone when it involves the whole family. Anyone would prefer their appearances to remain unscathed and anyone would feel pain when their surface or persona is destabilised. Yet to a certain extent this is a benevolent and necessary kind of pain and although Norman also causes pain that could not exactly be called benevolent he provides this kind too. None of the others really appreciate this benevolent aspect of Norman’s “conquests.”

Once again they become, involuntarily, hapless marionettes in Norman’s puppet theatre—and that as a direct consequence of their intention to ignore him. What a beautiful irony.

An exquisite example of “benevolent pain” that he inflicts upon the others is the burlesque breakfast scene Sunday morning where they have all decided to punish Norman for his insolent behaviour the previous night by simply ignoring the man completely. They think that their demonstrative silence will make him repent and mend his ways. No such luck with Norman. Instead, their ignorance emboldens Norman to weave a series of exposing and highly compromising narratives, one for each person, so tremendously sarcastic and penetrating that they, that is their fragile egos, are more firmly caught out and encapsulated than ever before. Once again they become, involuntarily, hapless marionettes in Norman’s puppet theatre—and that as a direct consequence of their intention to ignore him. What a beautiful irony. But again, Norman really doesn’t know what he is doing, he is just doing it. He cannot help following his urges as he is unable or unwilling to identify them. He is therefore as much a prisoner as anyone in his entourage with their relentless defence battles for the maintenance of their vulnerable appearances. The difference is that Norman could not care less about his appearance which fits in nicely with the circumstance that he is basically unconscious.

It is terrible, and at the same time indescribably funny, to watch Norman tear them apart, one by one, piece by piece, to watch them suffocate slowly of stillborn rage.

The breakfast scene is arguably the most psychologically violent scene in the play. It is terrible, and at the same time indescribably funny, to watch Norman tear them apart, one by one, piece by piece, to watch them suffocate slowly of stillborn rage. Since he is the only remaining person allowed to speak the others can do nothing except fencing off as stoically as they can the rapid succession of hurting blows from Norman who has now morphed into a psychoanalysing clown. One wonders how they manage to face each other again after this gruelling incident but they do, soon after, as if nothing had happened. In my (northern European) neck of the woods such an episode would have constituted ample reason for life enmity.

Still, another element should be added that is capable of mending the psychological and existential damage so that the play can safely continue. This element is Ruth. Unfortunately (or happily), Ruth is far from a peacemaking mediator. Rather her strength is merciless, or should I say ruthless, honesty. Her approach is always (well, almost always) rational rather than emotional, analytic rather than romantic, cynical rather than empathetic. For instance, when Ruth somewhat cynically suggests that what makes Norman such a social menace is not so much all the things he does or does not do or say but rather that people are too eager to talk about him behind his back, we sense that she has hit the nail on the head. It is of course very convenient for everybody to unite in a condemnation of Norman due to his unmannered behaviour because then they don’t have to face the fact that their back-biting is nothing but a consequence of their joint projection. They are bashing Norman, finding pleasure in the act even, because he dares to put on display what they carry within themselves but will not admit as they hate this dimension of their selves and seek to repress and deny it. However, paradoxically perhaps, Ruth’s refreshing frankness and clarity of thought create a whole new playing field wherein Norman can regain his seductive powers and wherein the others can recommence the reconstruction of their wounded egos.

They are bashing Norman, finding pleasure in the act even, because he dares to put on display what they carry within themselves but will not admit as they hate this dimension of their selves and seek to repress and deny it.

How dialectically appropriate that Ruth herself, the very ray of light and sanity in the emotional dungeon in which they stumble and stagger, ends up falling prey to the oldest trick in the book: Norman’s glib talk. Moreover, this happens after having keel-hauled him verbally and emotionally to such a degree that one would think no continuation of their interactions were possible save homicide. The more violently she forces her “truths” upon him, and indeed the truer her “truths” turn out to be, the more powerful his counter strikes, the more inescapable her infatuation with the new persona created as a result of her ferocious attacks. When Ruth once again falls for Norman she once again reveals that all her lucid interventions are merely expressions of self-love. She cannot help falling in love with her own brainchild.

Sarah & Reg

Finally there is Sarah and Reg, a middle class married couple with children; he is a real estate agent, she is a house wife. Sarah and Reg illustrate, perhaps most succinctly of the three couples in The Norman Conquests, one of Alan Ayckbourn’s pet insights: that any relationship between man and woman, no matter how harmonically and beautifully it begins, sooner or later will degenerate first into painful battle and discord, then, should they choose to continue living together despite being expelled from the initial state of bliss, into mutual ignorance and a corresponding adherence to decorum, that is, into a state of living death. In Ayckbourne’s misanthropic world-view the inevitable warfare between the two will grow so laborious and demanding, both on a personal and practical level, that eventually there is no escaping a fundamental choice: either leave each other or carry on the zombie life, both alternatives with their separate advantages and disadvantages.

There is no true communication between them, they never have normal conversations where ideas and opinions are exchanged and examined, there exists no interface through which their souls can become intimate; they are lonely together.

Sarah and Reg have chosen to stay together after many years of marriage and after having raised two children. The consequence is, quite according to Ayckbourn’s scheme, that they now inhabit totally separate spheres. There is no true communication between them, they never have normal conversations where ideas and opinions are exchanged and examined, there exists no interface through which their souls can become intimate; they are lonely together. The only surviving passions are those of hostility, aggression and boredom.

But something important takes place in the relationship between Sarah and Reg during the play, thanks to Norman, of course, who this time really achieves something extraordinary: he manages to seduce the pompous and “frigid” Sarah, the self-righteous busybody who talked Annie out of the “dirty weekend.” This is an impressive feat not just in terms of the plot but in terms of the acting. Tom Conti and Penelope Keith manage to do what every actor dreams of but few actually achieve: to truly and fully become their subjects, to extinguish themselves in order to give life to their roles thereby convincing the audience that all merits and flaws thought to belong to the role character are the merits and flaws of the actor and vice versa. Tom Conti is Norman and Norman is Tom Conti; Penelope Keith is Sarah and Sarah is Penelope Keith. This perfect merging of identities, or rather the experience thereof, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for establishing dramatic credibility. (The other all-important condition being that the viewer must be able to identify fully with the dramatic environment, a condition that is also met to perfection in this play. At least for the present reviewer.)

So he seduces her, a little bit at least. Maybe it would be more fitting to say that he wins her over if only for a few moments. It goes as far as some very awkward attempts at kissing and caressing before she wakes up from the spell and abruptly returns to her favourite image of herself: the respectable and responsible mother-of-two, before she returns to the realm of the living dead.

With this foul play, taking full advantage of her emotionally disturbed state, he gets past her defence works whereby he presumptuously offers Sarah the very same seaside getaway he had previously promised Annie: a few days escape from a bloodless marriage, noisy children and daily chores, a sensuous journey just for Sarah and Norman.

On another occasion, on their last evening together just after a terrible row between Sarah and Reg leaving the former in tears (Norman is always a master of timing), he sits down beside her to offer her his sympathy and empathy. He comforts her just like a mother would comfort her child that has been bullied and he tells her exactly what she wants to hear: that her husband is stupid and insensitive, that he is incapable of listening and understanding, consequently that her emotional outburst is completely legitimate etc. With this foul play, taking full advantage of her emotionally disturbed state, he gets past her defence works whereby he presumptuously offers Sarah the very same seaside getaway he had previously promised Annie: a few days escape from a bloodless marriage, noisy children and daily chores, a sensuous journey just for Sarah and Norman. In other words, the “dirty weekend” all over again. Oh, this is another ironical climax: Sarah, who all along has been the guardian of good manners and common decency and therefore Norman’s most zealous antagonist, accepts his fatuous offer, not in desperation but in sedation more like. She has been stung by the poisoned arrows of the peculiar, bearded embodiment of Eros that is our beloved Norman.

… Reg cannot for his bare life fathom how his otherwise prudent wife has given in to Norman’s bohemian style and cheap tricks …

Come Monday morning, as everybody are preparing for departure, Reg accidentally overhears Sarah asking herself, in a dreamlike manner as she passes him on her way to the car carrying her suitcase, what it would be like to visit Bournemouth this time of year without husband and children. He is astonished at first but then he puts two and two together and realises that it is Norman’s work. But Reg cannot for his bare life fathom how his otherwise prudent wife has given in to Norman’s bohemian style and cheap tricks, especially not after the terrible racket with Annie’s “dirty weekend.” But given in she has and it takes Reg exactly two seconds of deliberation to start panicking. Suddenly he realises that the hitherto impossible and unthinkable may soon be a reality: that his marriage is in jeopardy, that he can no longer take good old Sarah for granted, that she may have interest in more than just domestic affairs. He sets after her in a frenzy as if she were about to die, or as if he were about to die, which in a metaphorical sense he were.

Meanwhile, Sarah is wholly engulfed by her new fantasy and pays no attention to the frightened and pathetic male who runs screaming after her. Which is in a way tragic, because in this very moment, perhaps for the first time since their early days of marriage, Reg is willing and ready to accept her for what she really is, ready to listen to her unconditionally and communicate on a more personal level. Sarah is, however, momentarily unavailable. And when she becomes available again, that is, when her pipe dream has faded away as it eventually will, it is Reg who will be unavailable. Alas, true communication, true connection between man and woman is not possible, and if it were it would be unsustainable.

Much ado about nothing

Having thus interpreted each of the characters and their relations to each other it is now time to make a concluding comment on the play as a whole. Does it tell us anything? Can we learn anything from it? Is it an important play? Something in that vein.

Let’s start by picking up on the quote from Scarborough Evening News that preface this essay. It was written after the world première of The Norman Conquests at the Library Theatre in Scarborough, Yorkshire in 1973. The reviewer ponders: “I felt Ayckbourn was digging a little too deep into his characters. A joke’s a joke, and, for the audiences the Library Theatre attracts, shouldn’t be taken too far. Sad though it may be to admit it, they don’t want to be made to think.”

… the jokes in The Norman Conquests should not be taken as just jokes. If one does one misses out on a whole lot of meaning. The jokes do signify something.

In one sense this is undeniably true. Generally, people don’t want to think too much nor too deep. In fact, most people are prepared to pay good money for effective entertainment (treatment?) any time so that they can forget about the demanding or troublesome issues in their lives that require thinking, deliberation, judgement etc. Indeed, isn’t this the very idea of entertainment: to relieve us of our burdens, our conscience, our plight? To make life just a little easier? And if this is the main purpose of entertainment it wouldn’t be far from the truth to assume that it functions more or less like any other drug that promises to free us from awareness and consciousness, from the unbearable here and now.

In another sense, of course, one could say that the problem here is not so much the thinking activity itself but being “made to think” by something that is supposed to be just for fun. People are perhaps not averse to thinking and being serious as such but find it very unsettling when serious thinking is triggered by apparently innocent jokes. If nothing is just for fun any more then innocence is irretrievably lost and this most people cannot and will not accept. Should we accept it we are left with irony only, and since irony is the opposite of innocence and immediacy it not only threatens to flip entertainment into thinking and thinking into entertainment, it also brings the very non-humorous question of meaning to the fore. Suddenly we find ourselves asking: what does this actually mean, or rather, does this actually mean anything at all, anything in particular, and later: what is the meaning of it all, and, what if there is no meaning with anything? Therefore, to avoid this dangerous slippery slope towards a possible experience of utter meaninglessness, it is paramount, as the reviewer expresses with such admirable brevity, that “a joke’s a joke.”

It helps us see right through the mirror of conventionality into the existential despair that is the ultimate cause of the chaos, helplessness and emotional fragility so commonplace in modern lives.

However, the jokes in The Norman Conquests should not be taken as just jokes. If one does one misses out on a whole lot of meaning. The jokes do signify something. They mean something. Not just the jokes but the whole plot. What? Well, first of all it seems to me that The Norman Conquests helps us see through the polished surface of the “persona” through which we vaingloriously perceive others and ourselves. It helps us see right through the mirror of conventionality into the existential despair that is the ultimate cause of the chaos, helplessness and emotional fragility so commonplace in modern lives. And when we see through things, chaos loses some of its stronghold; we “get a grip” which is always useful and enlightening. But of course, like everything else it comes at a price. Seeing through things, making our speech and actions transparent, can be dangerous; we might discover things we do not wish to see (“curiosity killed the cat”).

The Norman Conquests is a great dramatic accomplishment not because it is so very deep in itself but because it so efficiently and humorously —and therefore convincingly—annihilates every conceivable surface (lie) with which to lead a normal life.

And this is precisely what happens in The Norman Conquests, or so I would argue. One of its main purposes is, not merely to entertain, but instead to open up the complexity of immediacy, to expose the true nature of what we take for granted, to make visible the conglomerate of impressions that meet the eye and the mind in any social setting. The Norman Conquests is a great dramatic accomplishment not because it is so very deep in itself but because it so efficiently and humorously —and therefore convincingly—annihilates every conceivable surface (lie) with which to lead a normal life. It leaves the diligent viewer with no other option than to rethink the purpose and meaning of his own life. No less. And as we shall see this can be a very dangerous exercise.

In order to explain this I would like to draw attention to some of the leading ideas from the oeuvre of the Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe as these may suitably function as an extrapolation, or philosophical deepening, of the “surface-demolition” that goes on in the play. In 1940 he published a taboo-shattering and sacred cow-slaughtering, now famous or rather infamous, essay entitled The last Messiah. Here he contends that human being as a species is doomed to ruin and destruction. Not only is it a fact that there is no meaning of life to be found anywhere, that there exists no “moral world order” (although humans are intellectually and even biologically determined to seek out such an order), it is also a fact that there is no decent or dignified way of living happily in the absence of a meaning of life and a proper foundation of morality. If humans are honest with themselves—if they live according to their truth-seeking nature without “ignobly” taking refuge in biological, social, metaphysical (religious) or other forms of “anchorage” (“appearance” and “façade” being very common forms of social anchorage and about the only form of anchorage to be seen in The Norman Conquests)—there is no way to escape self-destruction.

Therefore, human being is a tragic species, a nature’s error. And therefore, suicide is not a vice but a moral obligation, a sign of true nobility. And as always, noblesse oblige.

In the following quote Zapffe explains the vulnerability of the mechanism of anchoring:

It applies both to collective and individual systems of anchoring that, when a joint breaks, there is a crisis which is all the more sinister the closer the joint to the foundations. In the inner circles, however, where one is sheltered from the outside works, such crises occur daily and are relatively painless (disappointments); here one can even observe a play with values of anchoring (by employing wit, jargon, alcohol). But while thus playing one may inadvertently tear open a hole revealing the bottomless abyss below after which the setting abruptly changes from hilarious to macabre. The horror of existence stares at us and we sense in a mortifying moment that our souls dangle in its own web and that there is a Hell lurking underneath.

Peter Wessel Zapffe, Den sidste Messias (The last Messiah), cited from the anthology Hvordan jeg blev så flink – og andre tekster (How I became so clever – and other texts), Aventura, Oslo 1986, p. 40. My translation.

Now, if not before, we should be able to muster a grain of sympathy with the cautious reviewer from Scarborough Evening News who thought that Ayckbourn “was digging a little too deep into his characters.” He must somehow have sensed that the deep-digging is a playing with fire that would sooner or later lead to the pulverisation of our common safety net, of culture and civilisation as we know it. And who can blame him for suggesting that this must be avoided at all costs? Yet, in my view, this is precisely what the Norman-trilogy does: it pulverises our common safety net, or at least it threatens to do so when taken seriously. Does that mean that we shouldn’t take it seriously? I don’t think so.

Let us be reminded here of the Danish philosopher Piet Hein who famously said: “He who sees in jest only jest, and only seriousness in the serious, he has understood both things pretty poorly.” Or we could as well bring a no less famous quote usually attributed to Aristotle that purports the very same idea: “Humour is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humour; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.”

… the play may aptly be regarded as an artistic rendition of the aforementioned frivolous “play with values of anchoring,” hence a play where the characters frequently “tear open holes revealing the bottomless abyss below” with the unavoidable consequence that “the setting abruptly changes from hilarious to macabre.”

False wit? A subject which will not bear raillery? That we cannot have. So let’s return to the above quote from Zapffe in order to let gravity test the humour. It is my view that the play may aptly be regarded as an artistic rendition of the aforementioned frivolous “play with values of anchoring,” hence a play where the characters frequently “tear open holes revealing the bottomless abyss below” with the unavoidable consequence that “the setting abruptly changes from hilarious to macabre.” We’re talking about a play between surfaces, façades or representations, between fictitious entities in the shape of masks or personae. So when for instance Sarah breaks down after a sharp-edged, sarcastic and hateful remark from Reg, we realise that beneath the pretty surface of decency there is nothing but pain and agony. What seems real and solid turn illusory and sordid.

And if this wasn’t bad enough, what Zapffe is hinting at—the “bottomless abyss below,” the “Hell lurking underneath”—is something worse still. The strife, the pain and the agony may be bad but they are not bottomless. Pain is physical, psychological or emotional, not metaphysical. Which means that the pain will end sooner or later, and when it does it will be substituted by happiness or at least contentment, if only for a short while. As we have seen: Sarah recovers.

Zapffe, on the other hand, refers to an experience or insight after which there can be no rescue or recovery, to the reaching of a point of no return. Well in keeping with his nihilist agenda he is referring to the “hellish” experience of absolute nothingness, the crippling awareness that all conceivable pain—or gain for that matter—can serve no ultimate purpose, can have no universal meaning or bring no lasting satisfaction, can lead us from nowhere to nowhere. It is just something arbitrary that happens to take place in time and space, like Norman’s schemes is just something that happen to take place during this weekend. We can to a certain degree explain what is going on but we can never fully understand why as in the end everything is pointless. It all amounts to nothing.