The Unfriend Playtext

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by Stephen Moffat

'We're dying of manners. We're under siege from personal embarrassment. This is not sane. This is not rational. That woman is a monster!'

While on holiday, Peter and Debbie befriend Elsa: a lusty, Trump-loving widow from Denver, USA. She's less than woke but kind of wonderful. They agree to stay in touch - because no one ever really does, do they?

When Elsa invites herself to stay a few months later, they decide to look her up online. Too late, they learn the truth about Elsa Jean Krakowski. Deadly danger has just boarded a flight to London! But how do you protect all that you love from mortal peril without seeming, well, a bit impolite? Because guess who's coming... to murder!

Steven Moffat's play The Unfriend takes a hilarious and satirical look at middle-class England's disastrous instinct always to appear nice. It was first performed at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, in May 2022, with a cast including Amanda Abbington, Frances Barber and Reece Shearsmith, before transferring to the Criterion Theatre in London's West End in January 2023.

Steven Moffat is an award-winning writer whose internationally successful television shows include Doctor Who, Sherlock and Dracula - the latter two co-written with actor and writer Mark Gatiss, who made his stage directorial debut with The Unfriend.