"The prolific master of suburban mayhem has still got his mojo."— "One of Mr. Ayckbourn's most virtuosic experiments in postmodern narrative."— "Ayckbourn’s tartly topical, pitch-black comedy, a startling evocation of the panic induced by nightmarish notions of “broken Britain”... An arresting, nastily comic cautionary tale."— "Ayckbourn's genius lies in his ability to write what you might call 'sad comedies,' uproariously funny farces that are at second glance deeply serious, at times despairing portraits of modern middle-class life and its discontents. On occasion, as in , he puts the despair at centre stage, and what results is a play that at bottom can no longer be called a comedy at all."— "Alan Ayckbourn is the poet laureate of missed connections. In play after pensive, droll and acid play, Ayckbourn anatomizes how we fail to understand and trust our lovers and friends."— "As follows Spates at twenty year intervals through the next sixty years, it becomes progressively more funny, more tender, more Ayckbourn… Ayckbourn knows that moments of real connection between people are hard-won and hard to forget."—