Absent Friends at the Harold Pinter Theatre

Absent Friends at the Harold Pinter Theatre

09 February, 2012
by: DominicdiNezza

Katherine Parkinson and Reece Shearsmith stand out among a great ensemble in the West End production of Alan Ayckbourn's Absent Friends. 

Alan Ayckbourn describes his six-handed farce on ‘the death of love’ as a watershed moment in his writing, and watching Absent Friends, you still get a sense of the piece finding its feet.

Sexual tensions are already apparent in the build-up to Di's soiree, but the arrival of recently bereft schoolfriend, Colin, pushes all concerned to psychological breaking point. Coming on like a Chekhovian Abigail’s Party, the marital discord and social tension bubble over entertainingly in Jeremy Herrin’s slick production, with the grieving and nostalgic Colin (Reece Shearsmith) the unwitting architect of much of the mayhem.

The only real downside is a subtle divide in the second half, when Ayckbourn seems to invest emotionally in half his characters at the expense of the others. Steffan Rhodri, David Armand and Kara Tointon put barely a foot wrong as, respectively, brash host Paul, drippy salesman John and John’s spoilt, promiscuous wife Evelyn. But the other half of the cast benefit from having more meat on their dramatic bones and they take full advantage. Elizabeth Berrington is delightful as the well-meaning, socially inept Marge and Shearsmith is understatedly poignant as Colin, an emotional landmine around which the rest of the cast circle uneasily.

But the real star of the evening is the magnetic and moving Katherine Parkinson as hostess Di. Sharp and brittle as an icicle, Parkinson excels as the wounded heart of the play, who breaks down upon the realisation that instead of being cruelly robbed of her happiness, she in fact gave it all away.



Absent Friends runs at the Harold Pinter Theatre until 14th April.


Image by Simon Annand

DominicdiNezza