Love, death, and faded dreams...
a grown-up comedy about married life

Evelyn has had a one-night stand with Paul.  Her husband John knows, but is more concerned with getting business from Paul than revenge.  Paul’s wife Diana suspects, but doesn’t know.  Marge is outraged on Diana’s behalf, but preoccupied with her own husband Gordon, who is poorly (as usual) and has taken to his bed, but rings her regularly for comfort and advice.  It is shaping up to be a rather tense tea party.  But when recently bereaved Colin arrives, the cauldron of simmering resentments explodes to the surface in a thoroughly un-English way and people really start to unravel

Premiered in Scarborough in 1974, and not seen in London since 1975, ABSENT FRIENDS was a turning point in Ayckbourn’s career. Considered a huge risk at the time, it marked a shift from the brilliant light comedy of his earlier plays to the darker, richly tragicomic world for which he is now celebrated around the world, in which we can all recognize ourselves.