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Absent Friends by Alan Ayckbourn
Performed at the Greenwich Playhouse March 2004
Galleon Theatre Company
continued it's audacious, versatile and sell-out 2004
season, with the work of one of the world's most successful
living playwrights - Alan Ayckbourn. In Absent Friends,
Ayckbourn makes blackly-comic statements on the human
condition and on its marital relationships.
The writing of Alan Ayckbourn, like no other contemporary
playwright, perfectly fuses enlightenment with blazingly
theatrical entertainment. Ayckbourn is a painstaking
chronicler of human behaviour. He invites us to eavesdrop
on his character's thoughts and their dysfunctional
relationships; and then with delicate ingenuity and
craftsmanship he moves us with the tragic undertones
of their imperfect lives. In his plays he makes us
laugh a great deal and by holding a mirror up to
nature he shows us our own human foibles and flaws.
CREDITS
Directed by Bruce Jamieson
Produced by Alice de Sousa
THE CAST
Diana - Karen Admirral
Evelyn - Carole Carpenter
Marge - Fiona Terry
Paul - Paul Hessey
John - Adam Robert Brody
Colin - Kevin Marchant
THE CREATIVE TEAM
Costume Design - Rachel Baynton
Deputy Stage Manager - Elizabeth Buckeridge
Scenery Design - Liam Daniel Shea
Production Assistant - Karolyn Desbuquois
Lighting Designer - Robert Gooch
Make up Consultant - Cindy Hopkins
Publicity Design - Alison Rayner
Stills Photographer - Paul L.T. Welch |
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REVIEWS
“Bruce Jamieson has won performances from the
cast that succeed in combining parody with credibility.
Satire today may be much bolder and more cruel compared
with this era of Ayckbourn, but whether it catches
the mundane despair of life is another matter.” -
What’s On In London
“Directed at a cracking, heartless pace by
Bruce Jamieson, the cast of six revel in the cringe
worthiness of the parts they play and make us revel
with them” -
The Stage
“Continuing the impressive 2004 season at
Greenwich Playhouse is a fine production of Alan
Ayckbourn’s dark-humoured ‘Absent Friends’.
Galleon’s production manages to tease it aimlessly
into the 21st century - a combination of incisive
writing, smart direction and imaginative interpretation
by the talented cast. Instead of dated stereotypes,
we have endearing, entertaining characters, with
whom it’s all too easy to identify.” -
Theatre World “Blackly-comic statements leave the audience
in fits of laughter.” - Kentish Times
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