It’s an under acknowledged risk, being friendly. You never know what kind of person you’re inviting in with acts of careless kindness; how they will be interpreted, responded to, or all-out exploited. The Brits are, as a culture, more imperilled than most – they’d rather die than make a fuss.

Inspired by a real-life encounter of close friends, Steven Moffat (known for his work on Dr Who) literalises and lampoons this stereotype in his debut 2022 play The Unfriend, a comedy of manners offering up for the slaughter an English couple’s strangled politeness against another zeitgeist-flavoured type: American shamelessness.

Alex Lee, Tim Walter and Helen Thomson in Sydney Theatre Company’s The Unfriend. Photo © Prudence Upton

The latter arrives in the Jennifer Coolidge-like guise of Elsa, a gregarious “people-positive” extrovert (an appropriately scene-stealing, larger-than-life Helen Thomson) that Peter and Debbie (Tim Walter and Alex Lee) meet on a cruise. Elsa finagles their contact details and, unlike any normal person, actually follows up. Suddenly, a few days earlier than expected, she’s on their West Sussex doorstep with four suitcases, making brazen good of their disingenuous offer...