WE are sorely in need of laughter in these troubled W times and I have no hesitation in saying that The Unfriend by Steven Moffat at Chichester's Minerva Theatre is the funniest new play by a British dramatist since Alan Ayckbourn was at his peak. Moffat comes to the theatre from a successful television career in which he wrote numerous episodes of Doctor Who and Sherlock. Even if this is his debut play, he shows a genuine gift for exploring the comic possibilities of embarrassment.
The play's premise is simple. Peter and Debbie, an English suburban couple, meet Elsa, an unquenchable American gusher, on a cruise. Elsa insists that, if ever they are in Denver, they look her up: she also persuades Peter and Debbie to give her their email address. A brief encounter turns into a living nightmare when the formidable Elsa turns up at their Chiswick home. They check out their much-widowed guest on the internet, only to discover that she is rumoured to be a practised poisoner.
To say more would be to spoil the fun, but what Mr. Moffat exploits is the difficulty of getting rid of an unwanted house guest. You could say that the play has echoes of an American work such as Kaufman and Hart's The Man Who Came To Dinner and even of a Swiss piece, Max Frisch's The Fire Raisers, in which a pair of arsonists insinuate themselves into a family home. I was struck, however, by the deep Englishness of Mr. Moffat's play, in that it shows our endless capacity for evasion. Nowhere is that more evident than in the superb performance of Reece Shearsmith as the Pooterish Peter.
Denne historien er fra June 15, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra June 15, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
