Absent Friends: In Brief
Absent Friends
Play Number: 16World Premiere: 17 June 1974
Venue: Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre, Scarborough
Premiere Staging: In-the-round
Published: Samuel French, Vintage Classics
Other Media: Television; Radio
Cast: 3m / 3f
Run Time: 1hr 50m
Synopsis: A tea-party has been arranged for the recently bereaved Colin by 'friends' and acquaintances. However, Colin's acceptance of his situation and of his fulfilling time with his fiancée only serves to highlight and widen the rifts in the other relationships.
Note: The first Ayckbourn play to be set in 'real time'.
- Absent Friends is Alan Ayckbourn's 16th play.
- The world premiere - directed by Alan Ayckbourn - was held at Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre, Scarborough, on 17 June 1974.
- The London premiere - directed by Eric Thompson - took place at the Garrick Theatre on 23 July 1975.
- Absent Friends is the first Ayckbourn play to be set in 'real' time; the same amount of time elapses for the characters onstage as for the audience. Alan Ayckbourn's notable other real-time play is Haunting Julia.
- Unusually for the playwright, Absent Friends was inspired by a specific event in Alan Ayckbourn's life in which he attended a tea party for a woman whose husband had died during their honeymoon. The reaction to her insistence theirs would have been a perfect marriage directly inspired the play.
- The playwright was also motivated to write the play having written a single scene in The Norman Conquests which by necessity had to have no action or forward movement of the plot. It was a scene where nothing happened except the characters talked; inspired by the reaction to the scene, the playwright decided to write a play where - in essence - nothing happens.
- The original 1975 London production of Absent Friends marked the final time Eric Thompson would direct a West End premiere of an Ayckbourn play. He had previously directed Time And Time Again, Absurd Person Singular, The Norman Conquests and Jeeves in the West End (as well as the Broadway premieres of Absurd Person Singular and The Norman Conquests).
- During its West End run, it contributed to Alan Ayckbourn breaking the record for the most plays running simultaneously with five plays: Absent Friends, Absurd Person Singular and The Norman Conquests trilogy.
- In 1977, Absent Friends was adapted for radio by the BBC without the playwright's permission. Reduced in length to less than 60 minutes, the adaptation has now been withdrawn at the request of the playwright.
- Absent Friends was adapted for television in 1985 by the BBC and directed by Michael Simpson. Starring Tom Courtenay as Colin and Julia McKenzie as Diana, it is considered one of the strongest television adaptation of the playwright's work.
- The play received its New York premiere in 1991 when it was directed by Lynne Meadow for the Manhattan Theatre Club. Starring Brenda Blethyn as Diana, it also notably included the first major stage role of the actress Gillian Anderson - two years prior to finding initial fame as Agent Dana Scully in the popular TV series The X Files and the acclaimed stage and screen career which followed.
- The 2012 revival of Absent Friends in the West End at the Harold Pinter theatre - directed by Jeremy Herrin - is regarded by the playwright as, alongside Matthew Warchus's 2008 revival of The Norman Conquests at the Old Vic - as one of the definitive London productions of his work in the 21st century.
- Although published as a play text by Samuel French, Absent Friends was also published in the collection Three Plays (Penguin, later Vintage Classics).