Absent Friends, Harrogate Theatre (From The Advertiser Series)

Absent Friends, Harrogate Theatre

12:03pm Monday 1st March 2010

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COLIN’S fiancee has drowned, so a group of old friends invite him round for tea and sympathy.

But his cheerful acceptance of her death is in marked contrast to the neurosis and crisis troubling the people who are supposed to be helping him through this difficult time.

That is because they’re a familiar array of frustrated wives, cheating husbands and disinterested mothers who often feature in Alan Ayckbourn’s work, past and present.

Nikolai Foster’s excellent revival retains the period – early Seventies – setting when there wasn’t a mobile phone in sight, although the emotional turmoil that comes to the boil, triggered unintentionally by Colin, is relevant and prevalent no matter what the year.

Kerry Peers as Diana begins the afternoon as an eager-toplease hostess presenting one of her famous teas and ends up hysterical and ready for a trip to the nearest psychiatric ward.

Suspicions surround Steven Pinder, pictured above right, who plays Paul, and his philandering with Evelyn (Poppy Tierney), a young mother not given to saying much – and when she does open her mouth what she says is rude and tactless. Marge (Samantha Giles, above, complete with hideous laugh) has to cope with caring for a sick, overweight husband and an unfulfilled desire for children.

Dominic Gately gives a brilliantly sustained, hilariously funny account of John, a man who literally can’t sit still and, just when you think he might be overdoing the twitching and jigging, he reins it in.

David Crellin’s Colin, clutching a photograph album devoted to his dead fiancee, sails blithely through the tea party blind to the anguish and heartache his appearance is causing.

The mix of laughter and heartache is a difficult balance, but Foster’s staging gets it right in this commendable coproduction between Harrogate Theatre and Oldham Coliseum with Anvil Arts, Basingstoke.

Until March 13. Tickets 01423-502116 and online harrogatetheatre.co.uk

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