Friendly rivals (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Friendly rivals

8:30am Thursday 18th March 2010 in

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Absent Friends
The Haymarket
Until March 20

AN HILARIOUS script sweetens bitter truths in Alan Ayckbourn’s Absent Friends at The Haymarket this week.

With the best of intentions, Diana (Kerry Peers) gathers together a few old friends for a tea party to show her support for old pal Colin (David Crellin), who recently lost his fiancé.

But before the guest of honour has even arrived, old and new tensions between the motley bunch are simmering at the surface just waiting for a catalyst. And then in walks Colin.

The acting here is spot on. Peers – who some may recognise from The Bill or Brookside – is wonderful as the nervy hostess, desperately trying to keep it together despite a hollow marriage and an unfaithful husband, played by Steve Pinder.

A successful businessman, Pinder’s character Paul has forgotten his values and thinks of no-one but himself. He is even embarrassed by the sentimental gestures of his younger self.

Samantha Giles displays great comic timing – and a fantastic laugh – as Marge, who constantly says the wrong thing and Poppy Tierney, who has less to work with as sulky Evelyn, manages to draw a few laughs.

Crellin is deliciously underplayed, which is more than can be said for Dominic Gately, as John, who cannot stand still. While I commend his energy, his constant movement is at times overdone and distracts from the action, which has been well-crafted by director Nikolai Foster.

The set is impressive and looks like a bona fide 1970s home, complete with glass doors, and kitchen, but the real strength of the play is, naturally, Ayckbourn’s fantastic script.

The terrifying thing is that all the characters, and the mess they find themselves in, are utterly believable. They have changed so much that it is hard to imagine the mixed bunch were ever friends, and it is a reminder that as we grow older, we can become less tolerant, less forgiving and more judgmental of each other. Or, worse, we just stop caring.

It is a bittersweet pill that Ayckbourn asks us to swallow. But perhaps he is encouraging us to a look at, and amend, our own lives – and to be wary of inviting old friends round for tea.