A beautiful bond unfolds between Katie Redford and Benedict Salter in Jane Upton's luminous play, Scenes from a Friendship, at Nottingham Playhouse. This heart-melting production reimagines the sweeping, time-spanning love story of One Day but makes it platonic, focusing on two theatre-obsessed best mates.
A Friendship Across Decades
The play captures Jess and Billy in a series of snapshots, beginning in the early 1990s during their school days and moving through their 20s, 30s, and into their mid-40s. It threads together teenage crushes, career decisions, breakups, marriages, births, and children. Jess, played by Katie Redford, is an oversharer, while Billy, played by Benedict Salter, harbours secrets. Their early years pass through play rehearsals, parties, personal revelations, and betrayals, but even in their lowest moments, they are always pulled back to each other.
Divergent Paths
As their lives move in different directions—Billy heads to London for drama school and becomes a high-flying agent, while Jess stays in a suburban bubble before returning to the creative scene as a playwright—they turn their noses up at each other's choices. Yet in times of turmoil, they cannot help but pick up the phone or race across the country to be there for their old friend. Their dialogue accurately captures people who know each other's lives inside out. When their conversation tips into cruelty, it leaves the audience in emotional turmoil.
Directing and Design
Directed by Hannah Stone, the production shows friendship as something defining. Redford and Salter make their characters people we want to stay with across the decades. Time slips through our fingers: one moment they are 15 in 1995, getting advice from More! magazine; the next, it is 2022, and a 42-year-old Billy is considering surrogacy for his next child. Abby Clarke's design evokes nostalgia, with the back wall composed of white, Polaroid-inspired squares that shift from photographic outlines to mirrors. The setup screams: how does it all go so fast?
Room for More
With so much life to fit into 95 minutes, there are inevitable gaps in Billy and Jess's stories. We could learn more about the structure of their families and the other relationships in their lives. But really, this is a play about the complicated, beautiful bond between two people. It leaves you desperate for more days with them. Scenes from a Friendship runs at Nottingham Playhouse until 12 June.
