Absent Friends

Synopsis

The play is about Diane, who is unhappily married to Paul, a bullish control freak. She throws a tea party for one of their old friends, Colin, whose fiancée has recently died, and invites her daffy best friend Marge. Whilst one of the significant absences onstage is straightforwardly humorous - as Marge takes a series of telephone calls from her husband, who manages to suffer endless misfortunes even when confined to his bed - the tone is primarily set by Colin's rhapsodising about his recently deceased fiancée. Into this come John, his new wife Evelyn and their baby Wayne. Stage by stage things start to go wrong and ultimately Diana loses it and has a breakdown both on and off stage. In true farce style she leaves a trail of wreckage behind her, both physical and emotional.

Our Review:

29 October 2010

Alan Ayckbourn's Absent Friends is very much a product of its time. Written and set in the 1970s, it gives an intimate and excruciating view of what happens when a group of old friends spend the evening together in the wake of one of their number losing his fiancee.

The implication is that people inevitably change and so do their relationships and friendships, leaving you barely on speaking terms with your husband or barely able to put up with someone you've known for twenty years. Ayckbourn ratchets up the tension in this light but tense play, showing that each character is really as vile as the others.

As needy host Diana, heading full-pelt towards a nervous breakdown, Gillian McCafferty is mostly spot-on, but sometimes overly mannered, as is Chas Early as blustering, philandering husband Paul, not-so-secretly sleeping with business partner John's wife Evelyn. Giles Fagan as Colin is fine, but Shaun Stone is miscast as John, overplaying...

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Latest User Review

James B - 6 November 2010:

This is simply not funny. I love the Union but for the second time in my life I left at the interval. Just dull....

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