The People Next Door

Synopsis

"If the events of September 11th changed everybody's life forever, somebody forgot to tell Nigel. This multi-cultural farce by Henry Adam explores what happens when someone else's global problem becomes your local one."

Our Review:

25 August 2003

NOTE: The following review dates from August 2003 and the production's original run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Come Festival time each August, Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre is usually the first port of call for critics and audiences alike, for anyone in search of new writing that's as challenging as it is entertaining. Somehow, miraculously, they never let us down, and easily the best new play I saw there this year was The People Next Door.

The Traverse's in-house production of this boisterously funny and urgently topical play has now deservedly transferred to Stratford East's Theatre Royal. A surprising, touching and occasionally shocking comedy by a young Scottish writer Henry Adam whose previous Edinburgh hit, Amongst Unbroken Hearts, subsequently transferred to the Bush, it turns the 'war on terror' into a domestic issue on a British council estate.

Nigel's innocent life of idleness and spliff is suddenly disrupted w...

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Latest User Review

USER: Whatsonstage.com (212.211.104.43) - 10 September 2003:

A rare event here - a real play. Not a monologue, but a real play. You know, something with a story, characters, surprises, laughs..... A giant realistic set creates the perfect atmosphere, the actors (especially Fraser Ayers) create wonderfully real & believable characters, the language is rich and original and the staging impeccable. The play continually surprises you. There is real meat here - it grips you, it entertains you, but it also makes you think. Forget the dearth of real drama in the West End and head East to Stratford immediately. If you care about theatre as a living art form, you will not regret it....

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