The Unfriend

If you’re a keen theatre goer and are ever in or near to the Market Town of Oswestry in the glorious English county of Shropshire, be sure to check ‘What’s On’ at the Attfield Theatre. Based in the magnificent Guildhall at Bailey Head and with only 100 seats, it is often difficult to get tickets for regular productions, but if you’re lucky enough to do so, judging by the outstanding performance of ‘The Unfriend’ I had the pleasure of watching on Wednesday evening, you certainly won’t be disappointed!

Having enjoyed two short but highly successful runs in London’s West End, the second starring Lee Mack, host of ITV’s 1% Club, ‘The Unfriend’ was only released for performance by amateur theatre companies at the start of the year but has already been widely presented throughout the UK. From the pen of Steven Moffat, famous for his TV and film work as wide ranging as ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Sherlock’ and ‘The Adventures of Tintin’, his first stage play is a masterpiece of comedy writing and follows the ups and downs of a typically middle-class family who find themselves in a tricky predicament after being befriended by a rather brash, pushy and self-opinionated American woman whilst on holiday.

As I took my seat in this small but beautifully intimate theatre, the open stage was already set for the first part of the play with three deck chairs in front of two large stage flats which had been very cleverly designed as a ship’s bulkhead with portholes and a handrail to add to the authenticity.

It's almost the end of Peter and Debbie’s cruise celebrating twenty years of married life and a break from their annoying teenagers back at home in London. Their new ‘friend’ and fellow traveller, Elsa Jean Krakowski, is a larger-than-life, Trump-loving widow from Denver, Colorado, who has been entertaining Peter with her sensational stories whilst relaxing on deck sipping cocktails. Despite Peter’s hatred of the US President, they seem to have discovered a lot in common. Debbie, on the other hand, is more concerned about finishing the packing for the journey home, especially as there’s only two hours to go before the ship docks. People positive Elsa insists that they must come to Denver to visit her and whilst they have no intention of even thinking about it, they’re too polite to unfriend her and reluctantly agree to exchange email addresses.

The first scene over and enthusiastically applauded, what was the bulkhead of the ship was quickly dismantled in full view of the audience and the two flats moved to the back of the stage to become a low-level partition wall inside Peter and Debbie’s suburban London home which had been cleverly hidden from view from the start. The attractively decorated and furnished composite set included a living room and kitchen with breakfast bar and dining area, a large window and door to the outside garden and a cloakroom door to the right of it. There were steps leading to the upper floor on the right-hand side and the main entrance door below them.

Since getting home, Peter and Debbie have exchanged a large number of emails with Elsa and have been browbeaten into letting her come to stay. In advance of her arrival, Debbie has been Googling to find out more about their new ‘friend’ and discovered, much to her and Peter’s horror, that Elsa is in fact a serial murderer! To make matters even worse, she’s cut short the visit to another acquaintance and is due to arrive during the next few days.

Very cleverly there followed a short sequence for the audience to actually see and hear what Debbie and Peter were viewing on their laptop, now being projected onto the kitchen window blind. In true American crime documentary genre, a squat and villainous photo of Elsa was followed by the headline ‘Killer At Large’ and a vivid description of her victims which staggeringly included her father, her husband and several others! It ended by stating that despite there being insufficient evidence to bring a case against her, there seemed little doubt that this woman was a serial killer!

Now in blind panic and in a desperate attempt to stop her arriving, Peter and Debbie come up with all sorts of farcical plans and excuses to stall her, even suggesting Peter’s ninety-two-year-old mother might have taken a turn for the worse. Neither is the situation helped by the unannounced arrival of their boring neighbour who has let himself in to pursue Peter about sharing the cost of repairing the crumbling garden wall between their two properties. Even after ten years living next door to each other, Peter still doesn’t even know his name!

There was a sudden ‘chime’ from the laptop and Elsa’s face appeared in vertical mobile phone format on the screen explaining that she had unavoidably had to change her plans. The phone then quickly flipped back out of selfie mode, with Elsa bizarrely asking if the image she was looking at was Peter and Debbie’s front door? Totally puzzled and still unaware that she was actually standing on their doorstep, the door opened and in she marched, complete with enough luggage to stay for a month! Apart from being absolutely hilarious, this was a masterpiece of staging.

‘The Unfriend’ is without doubt a very clever piece of comedic writing with just a touch of mystery and a pinch of thriller thrown in for good measure so I’m deliberately not going to give the game away and talk about the complexity and ingenuity of the plot and shenanigans contained in the rest of the story to spoil future theatre viewing. This said, I must make mention of the remarkable group of actors who provided us with such a fantastic evening’s entertainment.

As the married couple, Peter (Wayne Young) and Debbie (Bekah Evans) both gave outstanding performances and worked naturally together as husband and wife with excellent comic timing as they cleverly interpreted and built the storyline with clear and well emphasised dialogue, delivered with great feeling, timing and emotion, especially in their fairly lengthy individual monologues later in the piece. Peter’s reluctance to deal with problems as they arouse gave way to some amusing light-hearted banter, his philosophy being that “you should never solve a problem too early in case it goes away by itself!” Debbie, on the other hand, who despite showing her anxiety, was the more forthright, sensible and well composed in finding the right solutions. Their facial expressions, looks of shock and horror and body language added greatly to the fun and games as they came to understand more about their guest.

In the role of the loud-mouthed Elsa Jean Krakowski, April Ryder gave a masterly performance, her faultless American accent never wavering for one minute from start to finish. Always appearing cool and only at times a little sinister, who would have believed that underneath her calm, warm and friendly exterior that Elsa was in fact a serial murderer. Her relationship with the two problem teenagers was particularly well handled as she tried to iron-out some of the parent/teenager problems that existed. This really was an outstanding performance!

Peter and Debbie’s the two stroppy teenagers were very well played by Alfie Guntrip as Alex, the guitar playing, video game addict, who rarely left his bedroom and was completely oblivious to anything else that was going on around him, and Poppy Chapman as Rosie, a rather sulky young lady, constantly irritated by her brother and who thinks her parents are selfish and always keeping secrets from her. Both Alex and Rosie showed great promise in their roles and particular skill in their ongoing relationship with Elsa. By the end of the piece it was clear that they had become much happier and more considerate individuals.

As the deadpan-faced annoying neighbour, Dave Ryder had us greatly amused at every entrance with his boring monotoned voice and his persistence to get an answer out of Peter about the garden wall repair. It was also clear that he was a bit of a nosey parker with his subtle comments about the volume of Alex’s electric guitar playing and Peter’s parking in front of his house which had us all in stitches.

Nathan Thomas as the hapless PC Junkin gave another fine performance, especially as he was completely oblivious to the underlying threat of having a serial killer in the house as he made several entrances to borrow milk from the kitchen fridge and eventually ended up in a comical but rather unpleasant cloakroom saga which ended in him wielding a toilet brush!

This really was the most excellent production and full credit most go to Director Kath Evans for her brilliant interpretation of Steven Moffat’s script. Credit must also go to Producer, Helen Crossley, Stage Manager, Nathan Thomas assisted by Carrie Fisher, and Julie Clark for the excellent set design and US Newsreel.

Thank you Attfield Theatre Company for your warm welcome and hospitality. I’m already looking forward to returning to Oswestry in March for ‘Private Lives’.

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