Photograph: Peter Flude/The Guardian
Amanda Abbington is a great believer in good manners. She and her ex-partner Martin Freeman instilled the importance of Ps and Qs in their two children from the word go. “We are so militant about it,” she says. “Manners cost nothing, as my grandmother used to say, and I think it’s true.” Even so, she is able to see the absurdity of British politeness at times, certainly when it is taken to extremes as it is in The Unfriend, Steven Moffat’s new play, in which she stars opposite Frances Barber and Reece Shearsmith.
The Unfriend, which is directed by Mark Gatiss, follows a couple who are “dying of manners”, as Abbington’s character Debbie puts it, after an American house guest turns out to be a potential maniac. The play is an indictment of British social mores, wrapped up in rollicking farce. “We’re not very good at saying, ‘That’s enough now,’” adds Abbington. “We tend to let people overstay their welcome. I’m like that, too.”
