A playreading where you can read a part or parts or just listen to this children’s play by Alan Ayckbourn

Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations is a popular, short, comedic play for young people by renowned British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, featuring a boy named Ernie whose vivid imagination (or “illucinations”) causes fantastical, often hilarious, things to happen in reality, much to his parents’ dismay and delight.

Young Ernie has been worrying his parents by his “illucinations”, as they call them. They take him to a doctor, and as Ernie describes these illucinations, soldiers invading his home, or his dad rescuing a famous mountaineer, they are enacted before the audience. When his dad swears to the sceptical doctor that the events actually happened, his dad asks Ernie to convince the doctor by imagining something then and there, and Ernie does so, with amazing results! This is a treat for all those Ayckbourn fans who feel there is nothing more to discover.

Ayckbourn, known for his complex adult comedies, discovered his talent for writing for children with Ernie’s and continues to be fond of its enduring success, making it an accessible entry point into his work. 

This is a short play, so after we’ve read it, we’ll have a discussion on possible ways to stage it.