In 1988, two Birmingham school friends tentatively come out to one another: Edward as gay; Peter, even more daringly, as an ABBA fan.

Nearly thirty years later, they meet again – and take a chance by forming the world's first ABBA tribute band in drag. It's a riot of platform boots and dodgy beards, 'Waterloos' and 'Chiquititas', and they couldn't escape if they wanted to. But can Edward and Peter's friendship survive the tribulations of a life on the road?

Ian Hallard's The Way Old Friends Do is a tender, laugh-out-loud comedy about devotion, desire and dancing queens. It premiered at Birmingham Rep in 2023, directed by Mark Gatiss, before touring the UK, including a run at Park Theatre, London.

The play offers every theatre company and drama group all the ingredients to give their audience the time of its life.

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'Camp, funny and jolly good fun'

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'A super-trouper of a show that reminds us all of the part music can play in our lives and our friendships... Hallard's script is keen-edged and perceptive, rapidly creating characters and imbuing them with life views that make the audience both laugh and feel a tinge of sadness'

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'Hilariously funny... a positive joy to watch from start to finish... bang on the Money, Money, Money'

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'Side-splittingly funny... the easy comedy of the first act gives way to a dramatic series of genuinely surprising twists in the second ahead of a touchingly sentimental conclusion... a genuine love letter to ABBA with plenty for the die-hard enthusiasts to enjoy, but when all is said and done it is ultimately a story about enduring friendship'

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'A gorgeously realised super trouper of a play that's well worth taking a chance on'

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'A fun, frothy comedy with heart-stopping moments... incorrigibly entertaining... [Hallard is] a comic writer who brings big dollops of warmth to his work, and abounding joyfulness too. A must-see for Abba fans; fun and laughs for the rest of us'

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'Hilarious... you don't have to be an ABBA aficionado to enjoy it'

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'Wonderfully funny'

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'A sweet, juicy, peach of a show that is physically impossible not to savour... a veritable goldmine of deliciously funny one-liners. But it also a touching, tender, and brilliantly executed meditation on the nature of enduring friendship, and of the challenges involved in coming out late in life... this show really is an awful lot of fun'

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'Full of heart, and enough witty one-liners to lift the spirits, whether or not you're an ABBA fan'

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'Extremely endearing... a refreshing twist on the conventional rom-com... Hallard's real-life love of ABBA shines through in his script'

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'Abbasolutely a delight! Warm but a bit rude, affirmative but absurd, with sudden big laughs and many, many treasurable lines'