Absent Friends makes grief funny - a rare feat. And although Alan Ayckbourn's 1974 play is a period piece, its sharp understanding of psychology feels up-to-date.
Fidgety John and sour-faced Evelyn drop in on unhappily married Paul and Diana. They are joined for tea by Marge, whose husband is stuck in bed with yet another ailment.
The intention is to cheer up their friend Colin, whose fiancée Carol recently drowned. However, not all of them enter into the project with enthusiasm. When Colin arrives, they try to tread carefully around the subject. But he is only too keen to talk about Carol - and finds a way to squeeze her name into nearly everything he says.
In any case, he's not the one who needs comforting. As Colin revisits the past, it's the others who turn out to be saturated with jealousy and resentment, and his grating optimism prompts them to reveal their darkness.
What starts as an exercise in consolation turns into a truly excruciating occasion, played out in the confines of a suburban sitting room. A superbly detailed design by Tom Scutt evokes the Seventies in all its polyester ghastliness.
Reece Shearsmith is endearingly pathetic as the sententious Colin. Kara Tointon, despite having little to say, impresses with her biting world-weariness as gum-chewing Evelyn. Her husband John is played with aching precision by David Armand, a riot of nervous energy.
Diana is the most tragic character, and Katherine Parkinson's performance is soulful. Her sad personal history could have been depicted by Chekhov; although her role is the most physically demonstrative (thanks in part to some business with a cream jug), it's also the one with the densest subtext. As Paul, her unappreciative spouse, Steffan Rhodri serves up a smartly observed mixture of competitiveness and impatience, while her fumbling friend Marge is nicely portrayed by Elizabeth Berrington, wearing an expression of horror even as she tries to repress her feelings.
Jeremy Herrin's meticulous direction ensures that every last scintilla of comedy is extracted from Ayckbourn's script. Although this isn't the most complex of pieces, Herrin finds layers of desolation in it. The result is a fine blend of the comic and the painful.
Until April 14 (0844 871 7622, haroldpintertheatre.co.uk)
Absent Friends
The Harold Pinter Theatre
Panton Street, SW1Y 4DN
