Gatiss directs for first time on Minerva stage
shows at college, Mark Gatiss is directing on the stage for the first time – a firstever play from his long-time collaborator Steven Moffat.
Starring Amanda Abbington, Frances Barber and Reece Shearsmith, The Unfriend is in Chichester’s Minerva Theatre from May 21-July 9.
And we have certainly had to wait for it. It was originally due to be part of the cancelled 2020 Chichester Festival Theatre season. Mark, whose work includes writing for and acting in the television series Doctor Who, Sherlock and Dracula, is delighted to be back in business with it all.
“We had done a photo shoot for the poster and we had one meeting about it and then I remember doing a Zoom call where everyone was hoping that theatres would maybe be back later in the summer, but I remember thinking I don't think that's going to happen!
“Of course it was very disappointing but it was absolutely the right decision to wait until we could all get back properly. It's a really funny show and I remember talking to Frances Barber and she was saying she couldn't bear the thought of playing to a third empty theatre with everyone sitting in masks. It would just kill the comedy.”
Especially as like all good comedy, it is rooted in something that actually happened.
“The whole thing is based on a true story. Steven (MofDiscounting fat) and (his wife) Sue Vertue went on a cruise and met this vivacious American lady and exchanged emails like you do. And then they find that she is coming to stay.”
The man Peter googles her… and discovers her terrible criminal past.
“Steven thought this was such a great story and so he started writing it and then he asked me if I would show it to people in the theatre.
"I talked to a producer and he took it to Daniel Evans (artistic director) in Chichester. And I came up with the title. There's a line in the play that Reece’s character says, that what the real world needs is an unfriend button.”
“It's a very different prospect for me to be directing in the theatre especially as obviously I will direct it and then go away, though obviously I will come back from time to time. But obviously when you are acting you stay with it throughout so it is a fascinating prospect.
"To me the great joy is the rhythm of the comedy and it has been done almost mathematically. Someone comes up and says a line and it is not funny but if they turn threequarters when they say it then it really is funny and that's the kind of thing that I find really enthralling, how that works.
"And it is also fascinating to make it work on a thrust stage. To me it is all about keeping it all fluid.
“This is my first theatre directing professionally. The producer took me out to breakfast and said you should direct this. I said ‘Oh really.’ It was not something that had really occurred to me but I am finding it so enjoyable.”