Steven Moffat’s debut play is a disappointingly bland comedy about an English couple who take in a possible serial killer
4 / 10
Moffat is an accomplished TV writer, and while not best known for comedy these days, he did mastermind enjoyable early ’00s sitcom ‘Coupling’. But clearly most playwrights don’t go straight into the West End with their first play. ‘The Unfriend’ is relatively short, but also waffly, unfocused and above all, bland. It’s easy to fantasise about what a playwright specialising in dark comedy like Richard Bean might have got out of the premise. But it’s doubly frustrating that as writers, both Gatiss and Shearsmith have such good form for the domestic grotesque; after a while, the cheeky little detail of Peter and Debbie’s house being number nine feels like it’s taunting us.
