'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 2022, before transferring to London's West End – first to the Criterion Theatre, then to Wyndham's – in 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.
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'Steven Moffat has skilfully crafted one of the funniest plays to be seen on stage in a very long time... pure comedy gold... a comedy of manners that niftily speeds along and is full of outrageous humour... never anything except laugh-out-loud funny... a killer comedy to die for'
" - WhatsOnStage"
'Effortlessly entertaining... The action is line-by-line funny and an apt commentary on English middle-class manners... Moffat may be the new Ayckbourn'
" - Telegraph"
'A hilarious dark comedy of good manners... a tour de force of toilet farce, proper gut-busting stuff'
" - The Stage"
'A cringe-tastic play of exquisite embarrassment... worthy of a place in the macabre comedy series Inside No 9'
" - Guardian"
'Boasts a ruthlessly efficient devotion to the punchline and a relentless urgency in ratcheting up the awkward tension. Every second or third line of this farcical modern comedy of manners is a gag... The premise is brilliant in its simplicity and hugely effective in its laugh-filled execution'
" - Chortle"
'A much-needed, riotous bit of fun... an uproarious comedy of English embarrassment... a relentlessly snowballing orgy of cringe and discomfiture... a delight'
" - Evening Standard"
'Hits the funny bone with a welcome twang'
" - The Times