CityLife

Absent Friends

Absent Friends
Oldham Coliseum
January 29, 2010

BACK in the seventies, Alan Ayckbourn was unrivalled top of the rep pops, darling of the West End and Broadway and, simply, the most successful playwright since Shakespeare.

In more recent times however it’s been fashionable to be a little sniffy about his work and these days, seeing his plays performed is something of a rarity.

But what goes around comes around and we are beginning to see the excavation of some of the earlier work on which his reputation is based.

Absent Friends dates from 1974, a period when the author was beginning to plunge his comedies into the darker areas of human interchange. It’s got that excruciatingly uncomfortable, laugh if you can at this, Ricky Gervais-style, humour about it, as five old friends meet with their mutual friend Colin to try to help support him in his supposed hour of need.

Colin’s fiancée has died suddenly and naturally enough his former mates think he will be devastated. But when Colin arrives for tea, he proves to be anything but depressed, basking, far too enthusiastically, in the glow of the memories of the time he spent with his dear departed.

Rapport

And his catalytic presence serves to emphasise what was already becoming clear – that the others in the group have considerable problems of their own.

The play is a very cunning slow burn, as Ayckbourn carefully lays down the backgrounds of the characters and it then takes off with a vengeance when Colin finally arrives and the friends immediately drop an avalanche of bricks.

The cast of six are an ensemble whose rapport increases as the evening progresses.

The more uncomfortable the situations get, the better they respond. I particularly like Kerry Peers’ fraught hostess Diana and David Crellin’s so-smug, self-centred, Colin. But everyone has their moments.

It’s directed with fitting restraint by Nikolai Foster and performed on designer Colin Richmond’s impressively huge open plan lounge/ kitchen/hallway of a set.

Until February 20, 2010.

Tweet