Inside quantity 9 on a west London avenue reside Peter (Reece Shearsmith) and Debbie (Amanda Abbington), a timorous couple who're “dying of manners”. They will’t talk with their teenage kids Alex (Gabriel Howell) and Rosie (Maddie Holliday), can’t stand their droning neighbour (Michael Simkins) and might’t imagine they've agreed to host a houseguest – or, as Alex describes her, an “unscheduled impediment”.
That is Elsa (Frances Barber), a brash American who was amusing firm once they met on a cruise, however whose arrival prompts Peter to yearn for a real-world equal of Fb’s “unfriend” button. Therefore the title of this debut play from that TV Midas, Steven Moffat, directed by his Sherlock/Dracula cohort Mark Gatiss, and worthy (excessive reward, this) of a spot in Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton’s macabre comedy collection Inside No 9. For Elsa isn’t only a burden. She may be a assassin, if the web rumours are to be believed. Nonetheless, that’s no cause to kick her out, is it?
Barely maintained boundaries are all over the place in Moffat’s script. The unresolved matter of a crumbling backyard wall looms over the household’s interactions with their neighbour. Peter gained’t enable Alex to interrupt wind in the lounge, banishing him to “much less public” areas of the home, whereas Debbie reprimands Rosie for eavesdropping. Into this knife-edge existence sweeps Elsa, a twister in a Gucci scarf, who smashes via all of the politeness (“You’re a bit bit passive-aggressive, aren’t you?”) and encourages the sullen kids out of their rooms as their mother and father look on in disbelief.
Regardless of her doubtful political leanings, Elsa will not be precisely a Trump surrogate, even when her burnt-orange velour tracksuit does name his complexion to thoughts. Moffat is extra involved with the thought of what seemingly ethical folks will countenance in trade for short-term acquire. The decline of requirements happens incrementally; earlier than it, accommodating a killer (if that's certainly what Elsa is) doesn’t appear all that unhealthy. “Give it a yr and we’ll be voting for her,” predicts Peter, who reads this newspaper simply so he is aware of what to be offended about.
Gatiss’s brisk directing doesn’t allow lags or reflection (he was requested by potential producers: “Is it simply humorous?”) and the rollicking tempo performs to the strengths of forged and textual content alike. Simkins provides a bravely unshowy efficiency calling on reserves of ability and stamina. Barber breathes new life right into a dynamic – devil-may-care American tutoring prim Britons – which feels vaguely played-out.
That is Shearsmith’s night, although, his paroxysms of awkwardness turning into ever extra finely calibrated because the hysteria escalates. Gesturing authoritatively with one arm, he's decreased to an ineffectual usher in his own residence. Sustaining two separate lies directly, he appears poised to tear himself in half. The present’s farcical high-point, wherein he confronts one thing far nastier than a fart within the entrance room, is an agonisingly protracted solo variety of beautiful embarrassment. It’s a pity Abbington isn’t given a bigger share of the bodily comedy, remaining principally a bystander or straight lady, which appears a waste of her reward for precision.
All this chaos is contained, nearly, inside Robert Jones’s appropriately higgledy-piggledy set. The underside half is a cross-section of kitchen and lounge, whereas the higher stage appears to twist barely away from us, giving the impression of an in any other case unremarkable hat worn suspiciously askew.
The Unfriend is on the Minerva theatre, Chichester, till 9 July.
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