Wednesday 13 – Saturday 16 June 2001

Invisible Friends

By Alan Ayckbourn
Directed by Romy Baskerville

Alan Ayckbourn's Invisible Friends is about a very ordinary teenager called Lucy, with her father glued to the cowboys on the TV, her mother preoccupied with neighbourly gossip and her brother enclosed in his earphones, no-one wants to know about her place in the school swimming team. So Lucy revives her childhood fantasy friend, Zara, setting a place for her at the very ordinary tea table. This time Zara materialises bringing with her an idealized father and brother and shows Lucy how to make her real family vanish.

The moral of this cautionary tale is carefully spelt out; when you get what you want, it's not what you wanted, - Lucy's dream family turn out to be a nightmare. The play is written for children of seven upwards, but there's a message here for parents too about listening to kids

Cast

Hayley Standing - Lucy Baines
Kieran Doyle - Gary, her real brother
Nadine Bramley - Joy, her real mother
Colin Hoult - Walt, her real father
Jo Nuttall - Zara, her invisible friend
Ben Sutherland - Chuck, Zara's invisible brother
Alex Bevan - Felix, Zara's invisible father