Stuck

Rick Friend;s debut play, Stuck was first staged by Production Friend at the Latchmere Theatre Battersea.

Starring Olivier award-winning actress and comedienne Sara Crowe, it received Time Out Critics’ Choice for Best Plays in London.

Reviews

Time Out (Critic's Choice - Best Plays in London)

"...Outrageous and highly enjoyable satire on the filofax set…

a zappy debut which marks Friend as a writer of some punch..."

Oracle - ITV & Channel 4

"It makes you laugh, it almost makes you cry and it makes you search your soul..."

Morning Star

"Funny and perceptive...Rick Friend's first full-length play. On this evidence he should not wait too long before he writes his second..."

The Guardian

"The characters are well drawn...The ear for the dialogue of today in this halfway house between Albee and Ayckbourn is acute..."

City Limits

"Humorous and sharp"

The Stage and Television Today

"Rick Friend has a nice line in comedy... The play, a sort of Pygmalion in reverse is a well-timed fable for our times..."

Synopsis

When Bella - young, rebellious and outspoken - explodes into the life of Tony - ambitious, establishment, workaholic - there ensues  an immediate, violent clash of ideas, as Bella launches a virulent attack on the social and sexual values of the Yuppie lifestyle.

In the next 24 hours, Bella wreaks a trail of havoc through the deceptively secure existences of Tony and his friends, challenging their insecurities, inadequacies and false ideals.

Funny and perceptive, Rick Friend’s new play is a thought-provoking study of the Britain of the late 1980’s.

From Time Out Review

A packed Filofax and high finance dominate the existence of Tony, whose inner world is as repressed as his daily life is structured. That is until he meets ballsy, blonde Bella in a lift. Their brief but bilious encounter, in which our punk heroine breaks her Walkman, allows her to enter the yuppie world of Tony and his friends to expose their shallowness, materialism and unhappiness.

Implausible, outrageous and highly enjoyable, Rick Friend’s first full-length play – a social satire of ‘80s bright young things, is a riot of hilarious if unlikely incident. Astride Tony’s grey-suited knee, the black-eyed, leather-clad Bella engineers deals with world-famous financiers, while the play’s climax – a dinner party – has the sensible Sloane Claire all a-twitter with revelations of sexual repression as her boyfriend Trevor, an overgrown, overpaid ex-hippy drools at Bella’s every pearl of wisdom. This is a zappy debut, which marks Friend as a writer of some punch.

Original Cast

Bella - Sara Crowe

Tony - William Brand

Claire - Vivien Darke

Trevor - Pancho Russell

Jane - Alix Klinger

Credits

Produced by - Production Friend

Writer/Producer - Rick Friend

Director - Michael Eriera

(For Donmar Warehouse) - Chris Fisher

Associate Producer - Lucy Silver

Design - Michael Fisher

Lighting - Penny Fitzgerald

Stage Manager - Kezia Martin