By Jane Upton
Nottingham Playhouse
15 May–12 June 2026

Jane Upton has become a playwright to watch over the past decade. In 2016, she was joint winner of the George Devine award for most promising playwright for her work All the Little Lights, which was also nominated for best play at the Writers’ Guild Awards.

Then in 2025, her play (the) woman, which East Midlands company New Perspectives took on tour before it transferred to London’s Park Theatre, was shortlisted for the Bruntwood Prize, “the largest playwriting competition in Europe”. She discussed the play on the BTG podcast.

Now her latest offering, Scenes from a Friendship, is having a four-week run at Nottingham Playhouse. It’s in the 98-seat Neville Studio, which gives the play intimacy and warmth.

Scenes from a Friendship is the story of Jess and Billy who meet at junior school and become inseparable. Upton shows how their relationship develops throughout adolescence into adulthood; it’s a bond based on trust and devotion, with Upton observing how their alliance is deep yet totally different from the partnership enjoyed by a husband and wife.

Katie Redford (Jess) and Benedict Salter (Billy) give superb performances throughout the 95-minute play which doesn’t have an interval. Both age well: they are credible as youngsters and transform into adults who evoke sympathy for their individual predicaments.

They start off being competitive as both have hopes of taking up acting as a career. But Jess doesn’t want to leave her home town. Billy gets a place at drama school and goes off to the big city. Yet despite being miles apart, they retain their friendship, which grows even stronger despite their arguments.

Billy struggles in the early part of the play to come to terms with whether he is gay. Salter gives the character depth and a multifaceted temperament. Towards the end, he breaks down when he reveals his life has been blighted because he has never been loved.

As for Jess, her life is in turmoil because she can’t decide whether she wants to be an actor after all. She is cast as the lead in a community production and falls for the director. Redford astutely shows us how Jess’s life is in a real mess after making a series of dubious decisions.

Hannah Stone skilfully directs Scenes from a Friendship, bringing out the tenderness, poignancy and humour of Upton’s script. The humour is particularly engaging, at one point Jess complaining about locked rooms at a party: “you don’t go to a party and half the rooms are blocked off. It’s not the National Trust!”

Abby Clarke’s white set is eye-catching, with a bed, a desk and drawers all sloping at a pronounced angle, maybe emphasising the ups and downs of both characters’ lives.

Scenes from a Friendship is a sharply observed, excellently acted and slick production which leaves you thinking about your own relationships. It’s another success for Jane Upton and Nottingham Playhouse. There was such rapturous applause at the end you feel it needs a bigger audience who can appreciate fully its charm, incisiveness and humour.

* This review originally appeared on the British Theatre Guide website