Preview: The Unfriend

I first came across this play a couple of years ago. I was hanging around in the National Theatre book shop looking for something to submit to direct and it was one of the titles they had with the cover facing out on the shelf. I think I picked it up because it had Reece Shearsmith on the front. (Shearsmith played Peter in the original Chichester Festival production; the role was picked up by Lee Mack in the West End.) Anyway I read the first few pages, decided it was funny and submitted it.

Little did I know it was still brand spanking new and hadn’t even had a London run yet, so inevitably we couldn’t get the rights initially. Fast forward two years and theatre committee dropped me an email to say that the rights to the play had come out – did I want to direct it still? “Yes” I said.

We meet Peter and Debbie (Olly Clifford and Rachael Dalton-Loveland), a predictably polite British couple who go to great lengths to avoid confrontation – until they meet Elsa (Caroline Doyle), a brash, eccentric American with a possibly sinister past. Elsa’s arrival upends their lives, turning politeness into growing anxiety.  Adding to the tension are their unimpressed teenage children, Rosie and Alex (Daisy Daniell and Gabriel Garcia-Marca), along with their busybody neighbour (Mark Ireson). Meanwhile, PC Junkin (Daniel Abeshin), an unsuspecting police officer, finds his visit is anything but routine. Chaos ensues with some hilariously awkward interactions.

The challenges directing a comedy, rather than a straight play, are always the same I think. To make it actually funny you need to work really hard at the detail of timing and reactions, and also remember that for the characters on stage this is almost all deadly serious and agonising, and they’re generally having a really awful time.

Uninvite. Undesirable. Unalive.