The Unfriend

'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.

'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