The Unfriend

By Steven Moffat
Directed by Mark Gattis
Designed by Robert Jones
Lighting design by Mark Henderson

The Minerva Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre

Saturday 28th May 2022, 14.45

CAST

Amanda Abbington – Debbie
Frances Barber- Elsa Jean Krakowski
Reece Shearsmith – Peter
Maddie Holiday – Rosie
Gabriel Howell- Alex
Marcus Onilude- PC Junkin
Michael Simkins – the neighbour

Four reviews in a week for me. That’s back to 2019 levels finally. The two RSC plays at Stratford were booked ages ago, then this was booked ages ago too. When Chichester’s new season came online, we said, ‘Great idea. we’re already seeing The Unfriend on Saturday afternoon, so let’s book Murder On The Orient Express for Friday night, stay over in a hotel and have a relaxed visit.’ But then numbers have never been my strong point, so I mistakenly booked Murder On The Orient Express for Thursday. I could have changed it, but we’d managed to get front row seats in the centre blocks, and that’s so good we decided to stick with it. We thought of staying two nights, but it’s always difficult getting to sleep in a hotel, and we decided we’d be home well before we’d have been asleep. We got back in 80 minutes, in spite of horrendous overnight closures on the M27 in the opposite direction. We thought that was all ended. The roadworks with long night diversions is the reason we stopped booking evening shows at Chichester.

The play is written by Steven Moffat, and directed by Mark Gattis, so the Sherlock / Dr Who / Dracula TV team. Thursday was The Unfriend press night, and we saw the paid critics assembling by the chilled champagne as we left the restaurant, and as we came out of the Festival Theatre from Murder On The Orient Express at ten to ten, they were all assembled in the restaurant opposite. So full marks for getting reviews in the morning papers. However, they really differed.

Promisingly, it has the same design and lighting team as Murder On The Orient Express – Rob Jones and Mark Henderson. It has the great Michael Simkins as the neighbour. The set is superb. You can see the outside of the modern estate house next to the top of the stairs, and lights go on and off in the upstairs rooms.

Debbie (Amanda Abbingdon), Elsa (Frances Barber), Peter (Reece Shearsmith)

The premise is simple. Debbie and Peter are on a cruise, where they meet the American widow, Elsa. There is a major difference between vacationing Americans and Brits. Have you had that conversation that ends, ‘Whenever you’re in (England / Colorado) you must come and (see / visit / stay) with us?’ This is the difference. In general, Americans mean it, and will be pleased to see you if you do turn up. It might be the pioneer heritage about welcoming travelling strangers. I’ve had addresses thrust upon me after a twenty minute conversation as a plane was coming in to land. Maybe they know I’m unlikely to ever turn up in Wichita, Kansas when they say it, but I think they mean it.

The British are just as likely to say it, but they are 100% insincere. They definitely do not mean it. Trust me. I’ve said it, and once or twice I might just have meant it, but usually not. (If you’re American and I said it to you, of course you are the rare exception where I meant it. What’s that? I forgot to give you my address? Sorry … the phone’s breaking up …)

Amanda Abbington, Frances Barber, Maddie Holiday

It’s not exactly like that. Elsa, the American they meet on the cruise, prevails on Peter and Debbie, the British couple to give them her e-mail address. In retrospect, maybe she tricks them into giving her the e-mail address. They don’t even make the insincere promise, however, when she asks if she can visit, they don’t know how to say no. So they Google her and discover that she’s suspected of multiple murders of relatives. They’re terrified of having her in the house. But this is not Facebook. They cannot simply “unfriend” her. Theatrically, projection is used to show what they’re looking at on a laptop … the use of projection is becoming a given in plays nowadays.

Projection is used for Google and for FaceTime on the laptop.

It’s tempting to quote … we bought the play text at the theatre (which was signed by Messrs Moffat and Gaddis). I’m resisting it, or going too far into the plot. This play will be going for years, and I don’t want to spoil a single precious line of it. We laughed all the way through.

Gabriel Howell as Alex, the teenaged son

The household consists of teenage children (Gabriel Howell and Maddie Holiday, both so real). They have the world’s most boring man as the neighbour (Michael, Simkins). The play is rounded out by the local police officer (Marcus Onilude) first seen casually ransacking their fridge. The thing is that Elsa’s loud cheerfulness eventually seems to improve their kids’ lives and their lives. But yet … is she a serial killer? She’s offering to cook for them. She’s offering to babysit. The kids want her to stay. What will happen?

The scenes play out over a week. Peter and Debbie’s excruciatingly British politeness doesn’t allow them to confront. It also forces them into white lies about Peter’s ‘dying mother.’

A popular device is the double scene, where we see them act out how they hope an event will go (telling Elsa she has to leave), followed by a repeat as the very different reality. That was a key idea in Love On The Rocks a play which we saw twice. They only use the device the once in this production.

The neighbour continually fusses about the garden, and reveals that he and his wife spend much time discussing the doings at Peter and Debbie’s house in a critical way. Peter finds it impossible to follow his drone.

There is a great scene, where the police officer asks if he can use their toilet, and they’re worried, because they suspect that Elsa is a poisoner and she’s just made him sandwiches and he has stomach ache. This scene is farce at its best. Reece Shearsmith was doing farce at Brian Rix Whitehall Comedy levels, which is the highest praise, though he never did Brian Rix’s trademark loss of trousers. Bear with me, younger readers. In my youth, the highlight of every British bank holiday was a farce transmitted live from the stage of the Whitehall Theatre in London (now The Trafalagar Studios). They were incredibly popular and essential viewing throughout the land. What struck me is that surely Steven Moffat and Mark Gaddis are too young to know the genre? The farces haven’t been kept and re-transmitted as far as I know. This is more subtle than Whitehall Farce ever was (it was a genre known for very LOUD PROJECTION), but the way Shearsmith played it was masterly, as was Amanda Abingdon’s interventions and reactions. One of the funniest scenes I’ve seen in years, and the best of that nature since Mark Rylance’s long, long toilet monologue in La Bête. However, at least two of the critics don’t like toilet jokes.

Given the usual effing and blinding count in modern comedy, Steven Moffat has just one F-word in the whole play. It would not be in character for Peter and Debbie, that’s why. So when Peter drops one, it has impact and so earns a major laugh. Perfect placement.

Rarely do you see a critical range from five stars to two stars, which this has attracted. The two reviews I always read first, The Guardian and Telegraph, agree on four stars. Domenic Cavendish, as our senior reviewer now, compares it to Max Frisch’s The Fire Raisers and Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker on the visitor who brings out issues and changes things. That’s astute, and I wish I’d thought of it, having done both plays in my time. Cavendish also suggests that Steven Moffat might be our new Ayckbourn. I’d agree too, on producing popular theatre that fills theatres and gets standing ovations. I thought Moffat had a more consistent and smoother grasp of comedy than Ayckbourn, though the play lacks the sudden theatrical flashes or unusual stagecraft that are Ayckbourn’s trademark. Also, this play will work on a proscenium stage just as well as on the Minerva’s three quarters in the round stage. It has flow.It has pace. It has comic timing, assisted by a perfect casting choice.

What really annoyed me about those snotty two and three star reviews (The Independent, The Times, The Daily Mail) is their lofty dismissal of “sitcom.” Where do I start? I could start with the genius of Perry and Croft, or Galton & Simpson, or John Cleese and Connie Booth. We spent twenty years writing ELT sitcoms, and we have studied the genre. We have two long shelves of DVD sets of sitcom. Bob Spiers (who directed episodes of Dad’s Army, Fawlty Towers, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, Are You Being Served? The Comic Strip Presents, Bottom, Absolutely Fabulous as well as Joking Apart, written by Steven Moffat) directed one of our ELT video series, and I spent happy hours discussing sitcom basics with him, that, and listening to The Travelin’ Wilburys. (Incidentally, he reckoned the greatest ever was Dad’s Army by a whisker over Fawlty Towers). Next is that sitcoms peak at thirty minutes. That’s it. You Rang My Lord by Perry & Croft was rare in making it work at an hour, but that involved a large cast and multiple situations per episode. Then sitcoms don’t translate to stage. We saw Dad’s Army and Hi De Hi in their stage versions, and they failed at the length. They don’t transfer to feature films either. A sitcom has mileage with the same characters. This play is NOT a sitcom (not that we’d be complaining if it were). It is a play. A comedy. It also has enough meat for an A level set question (Can Elsa be described as an Angel of Death? Discuss.)

For sheer enjoyment, it’s a five star play for me with direction and acting at the level. That would make it three five star plays in a week. I don’t think that’s happened before.

I can see why The Guardian and Telegraph gave it a most respectable four stars rather than five. There isn’t any breaking of the fourth wall, there isn’t any of that interactivity seizing the audience. The same is true of the best of Wilde and Ayckbourn, I suppose. But there was no new or startling piece of theatricality. It is a very “well-made” play, a phrase often used to diss Coward or Rattigan or Ayckbourn, but it should be regarded here as praise. Patrick Marmion in The Mail couldn’t understand why nearly everyone around him was laughing all the way through (as were we). Well, Patrick, you were in the minority.

As I said in the Murder on The Orient Express review, ratings are genre specific. So that was a five star thriller. This is a five star comedy play. The snootier critics seem to have ratings based on (say) the best-ever production of Hamlet as five star.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

They differ so much that I took screenshots:

Five Star
Gareth Carr, What’sOnStage *****