10:40am Friday 12th March 2010
By Lucie Richards
MID-LIFE crises and failing relationships are the subject of Alan Ayckbourn’s bittersweet drama Absent Friends, which is coming to The Haymarket next week.
The touring production, about a group of old friends at a tea party that goes disastrously wrong, is playing in Basingstoke at the end of its run from March 16 to 20.
Among the six-strong cast – which includes David Crellin, Dominic Gately, Samantha Giles, Steve Pinder and Poppy Tierney – is actress Kerry Peers who plays Diana – a woman who is hosting the party for a friend who lost his fiancée.
She said: “In a typically British way, everyone’s quite scared of coping with his mourning in this dance around the subject, and everything falls apart. And it’s Ayckbourn, so it’s funny but for the most excruciating reasons.
“Colin, the character in mourning, is the only one who’s still whole. He’s at peace and has accepted his lot, but he manages to inadvertently expose the faults of everyone else and highlight how their relationships are falling apart.”
Peers – whose first acting job after drama school was with Ayckbourn and his play Mr A’s Amazing Maze Plays – said her character, Diana, is coping with a philandering husband.
She added: “Her husband is having a number of affairs, including with one of the persons present. She starts out in quite a nervous, agitated state, trying to cover it up, but things start to burst out – there’s not a lot of laughs for my character!
“As in many of Ayckbourn’s plays, he doesn’t give a great amount of hope, but there probably is a message to notice the important things in life that make us whole as human beings.”
The actress – who played Suzi Croft in The Bill and Helen Carey in Brookside – continued: “There’s a particular style to Ayckbourn – his writing dictates the way you say a line and he’s a great teacher.”
Peers has worked with Nikolai Foster – whom she praises as one of the most exciting emerging directors – five times before and said that the cast immediately felt like a company when they came together for this tour, having variously worked together over the years.
She said: “That is pertinent for this play as it’s all about old friends.”
Tickets are priced from £17.50, and 2pm matinee performances on March 18 and 20 are £14.50, both with concessions available. They can be booked from the box office on 01256 844244 or online at anvilarts.org.uk.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.basingstokegazette.co.uk/trade_directory/