Sir Alan Ayckbourn is in hospital in Scarborough

Playwright, producer, director and actor, Sir Alan has been a stalwart of British theatre since the 1950s.

With more than 60 plays to his name, he is widely considered one of Britain's most popular living playwrights, alongside Harold Pinter, and continues to write strong satires about the middle-classes.

Sir Alan was born on 12 April 1939, and began writing aged 10. His blossoming love of the theatre was nurtured through his school years at Haileybury, in Hertfordshire, where he toured with the school's Shakespeare company.

Artistic director

Sir Alan's passion for the stage was so strong that he left school aged 17, and went to work in the theatre.

Between 1956 and 1957, Sir Alan worked as a stage manager and actor for Donald Wolfit's company, in Edinburgh, Worthing, Leatherhead, Scarborough, and Oxford, then for the Stephen Joseph Theatre-in-the-Round, Scarborough, Yorkshire

His writing career began proper in the late 1950s, but it was 1967 when his first hit, Relatively Speaking, opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in London's West End.

Since then, almost all of his plays have opened at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, where he returned in 1971 to become artistic director at the age of 30.

Others have opened at the Royal National Theatre in London, or by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Awards

His major successes include The Norman Conquests trilogy, Just Between Ourselves, A Chorus Of Disapproval, Bedroom Farce, Woman In Mind, A Small Family Business and Man Of The Moment and House and Garden.

Sir Alan's plays have won numerous awards, including seven London Evening Standard awards, and have been performed across the world.

Several of his plays have been seen on Broadway attracting two Tony nominations.

In 2002, Sir Alan warned he may boycott the theatres in London's West End because of its "obsession" with hiring Hollywood stars.

He singled out Madonna, who starred in David Williamson's Up For Grabs, for his harshest criticism, adding that if West End managers continued to concentrate on big-name stars he would not "want to be part of it".

In 1987, Sir Alan was made CBE and knighted in 1997.

He has also received a number of honourary degrees from Universities across the UK.