★★★★☆
Steven Moffat has written some very successful TV shows such as Coupling, the Emmy Award-winning Sherlock, and Dr Who. One of my favourite Dr Who episodes, ‘Blink’, introduced the murderous Weeping Angels, inspired by cemetery statuary. Moffat clearly understands basic human fear because that Dr Who episode is a genuinely creepy, scary affair.
Fear, though, can take many forms, and in Moffat’s first foray into playwriting, The Unfriend, it’s not existential dread that is interrogated, but the quintessential British fear of appearing impolite and risking eternal embarrassment.
Sydney Theatre Company’s production of The Unfriend is directed by Simon Phillips, with design by Isabel Hudson. The show is billed as being “dark.” It ain’t. Light and frothy, even a little old-fashioned in its awkward ‘comedy of manners’ Englishness, it elaborates on what is apparently a true story to wonderful comic effect.
The opening of Act One plays like a prologue where, on a cruise, Elsa (Helen Thomson), a blunt American seemingly on friendly terms with everyone, meets an English couple, Peter (Tim Walter) and his wife Debbie (Alex Lee), who are rather more reserved and equivocating. It’s a classic cultural collision. They part, Peter and Debbie promising but not intending to stay in touch.
Peter and Debbie lead a pretty insular life: they don’t know the name of their longstanding neighbour (Huw Higginson). Their kids Alex (Ty Arnott) and Rosie (Brooklyn Davies) are a mystery, and Peter needs The Guardian to tell him what he should be angry about.
So when Elsa invites herself to stay, it triggers all kinds of anxiety, not alleviated by a Google search revealing Elsa may be a serial murderer. However, even as Peter and Debbie persistently try to get her to leave, she ingratiates herself, with unexpected positive effect, into their world.
The Unfriend has a noticeable sitcom aesthetic, and director Phillips leans into this. The characters tend to be hyper-realised, and there is some statically staged delivery. Video projection from Morgan Moroney enhances the sitcom feel while adding a touch of modernity.
Hudson’s set is a substantial thing, replicating the ground floor of a middle-class English home and detailed with somewhat incongruous items: modern kitchen appliances, mid-century furniture and a (faux) classic balustrade. There are bone china teacups, of course.
The Unfriend is not perfect. It mines familiar territory, which means that the audience is sometimes there before the delivery – the humour telegraphed, though, with expectations fulfilled. And it’s not all a laugh-a-minute. There are flat spots, one of which unfortunately arrives straight after the cracking opening, making you yearn for Elsa’s arrival. It’s also a little loose and unfocused and should probably be a tight 90 min run straight through.
The second act’s truly monstrous set piece, however, is almost worth the price of admission alone. In an excruciatingly prolonged scatological joke, Moffat doesn’t just go there; he packs a bag, saddles up, and stays a while. And Phillips rides shotgun, giving full rein to humour that is not so much delicate brushwork as full-on Jackson Pollock.
Thomson is outrageously good as Elsa. While there are echoes of Jennifer Coolidge in White Lotus, and her own turn as Lynelle in Colin from Accounts, here, Thomson has created a whole new beast, stealing scenes as an irresistible alpha female in leopard-print and velour. The script gives Elsa zingers and Thomson’s timing is razor-sharp. Her jousting with Walter crackles with malicious delight.
Walter imbues Peter with Basil Fawlty-like discomfort, minus the obsequious snark. His physical comedy, all awkward limbs and side-glances, is top shelf, particularly during the second act shenanigans with Ben Wood as a nonplussed PC Junkin.
Huw Higginson plays the (equally ignored and annoying) passive-aggressive neighbour fussing about a boundary fence, which is perhaps no more substantial than the boundaries Peter and Debbie are failing to maintain with Elsa. Higginson gives a masterful performance in stillness and facial expression at the beginning and end of Act Two.
The Unfriend is a play that makes no attempt to be socio-political commentary, and thank God for that. Sometimes to escape the daily newsfeed horrors, you just need a bloody good night out. If the tears of laughter on opening night were evidence, this Sydney Theatre Company production is it.
The Unfriend is presented by Sydney Theatre Company and runs to 31 October at the Roslyn Packer Theatre. 22 Hickson Road Walsh Bay NSW 2000.
Tickets are available here.
Website: https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/whats-on/2026/productions/the-unfriend
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/sydneytheatreco/
Photo credits: Prudence Upton
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