Origin
Sign In My Cart
Search
alphabetical author index
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Unfriend, The

  • Steven Moffat
  • Full Length Play, Comedy, New Millennium/21st Century
  • 4M, 3F
  • ISBN: 9781839041501

"We're dying of manners. We're under siege from personal embarrassment. This is not sane. This is not rational. That woman is a monster!"

More information

Description

  • Full Length Play
  • Comedy

  • Time Period: New Millennium/21st Century
  • Target Audience: Adult
  • Set Requirements: Unit Set/Multiple Settings

  • Performance Group:
  • Community Theatre, Professional Theatre
While on holiday, Peter and Debbie befriend Elsa: a lusty, Trump-loving widow from Denver, USA. She's less than woke but kind of wonderful. They agree to stay in touch – because no one ever really does, do they?

When Elsa invites herself to stay a few months later, they decide to look her up online. Too late, they learn the truth about Elsa Jean Krakowski. Deadly danger has just boarded a flight to London! But how do you protect all that you love from mortal peril without seeming, well, a bit impolite? Because guess who's coming... to murder!

Steven Moffat's play The Unfriend takes a hilarious and satirical look at middle-class England's disastrous instinct always to appear nice. It was first performed at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, in 2022, before transferring to London's West End – first to the Criterion Theatre, then to Wyndham's – in 2023.

Steven Moffat is an award-winning writer whose internationally successful television shows include Doctor Who, Sherlock and Dracula – the latter two co-written with actor and writer Mark Gatiss, who made his stage directorial debut with The Unfriend.
REVIEWS:

"Steven Moffat has skilfully crafted one of the funniest plays to be seen on stage in a very long time... pure comedy gold... a comedy of manners that niftily speeds along and is full of outrageous humour... never anything except laugh-out-loud funny... a killer comedy to die for."

 WhatsOnStage

"Effortlessly entertaining... The action is line-by-line funny and an apt commentary on English middle-class manners... Moffat may be the new Ayckbourn."

 Telegraph

"A hilarious dark comedy of good manners... a tour de force of toilet farce, proper gut-busting stuff."

 The Stage

"A cringe-tastic play of exquisite embarrassment... worthy of a place in the macabre comedy series Inside No 9."

 The Guardian

"Boasts a ruthlessly efficient devotion to the punchline and a relentless urgency in ratcheting up the awkward tension. Every second or third line of this farcical modern comedy of manners is a gag... The premise is brilliant in its simplicity and hugely effective in its laugh-filled execution."

 Chortle

"A much-needed, riotous bit of fun... an uproarious comedy of English embarrassment... a relentlessly snowballing orgy of cringe and discomfiture... a delight."

 Evening Standard

"Hits the funny bone with a welcome twang."

 The Times

Premiere Production: Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 2022.

Characters

  • Casting: 4M, 3F

Available Material

Name Price
Unfriend, The Script This is optional. Order Now

While on holiday, Peter and Debbie befriend Elsa: a lusty, Trump-loving widow from Denver, USA. She's less than woke but kind of wonderful. They agree to stay in touch – because no one ever really does, do they?

When Elsa invites herself to stay a few months later, they decide to look her up online. Too late, they learn the truth about Elsa Jean Krakowski. Deadly danger has just boarded a flight to London! But how do you protect all that you love from mortal peril without seeming, well, a bit impolite? Because guess who's coming... to murder!

Steven Moffat's play The Unfriend takes a hilarious and satirical look at middle-class England's disastrous instinct always to appear nice. It was first performed at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, in 2022, before transferring to London's West End – first to the Criterion Theatre, then to Wyndham's – in 2023.

Steven Moffat is an award-winning writer whose internationally successful television shows include Doctor Who, Sherlock and Dracula – the latter two co-written with actor and writer Mark Gatiss, who made his stage directorial debut with The Unfriend.

$24.95

Related Works