The People Next Door

by Henry Adam

An Ortonesque black farce.

Genres: Drama

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

It wasn't till I finished this mess that I realized it's actually SUPPOSED to be funny - it isn't, but that would explain the superficial characters spouting inane, unrealistic dialogue. Compounding that problem is the hopelessly dated nature of the plot (hysteria over 9/11), the problematic homophobia raising its nasty head at the denouement, and the fact it needs pruning by at least 45 minutes.

https://variety.com/2006/legit/review...
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/200...
https://www.theatermania.com/new-york...
https://reviewsgate.com/the-people-ne...

[Marija · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love how it deals with current problems like racism even thought it has been published 15 years ago.

[Martin Denton · Rating 3 out of 5]

The People Next Door, a play by Henry Adam, is about Nigel Brunswick. Nigel--26, the result of a sad, brief fling between a Pakistani Muslim man and a lower-class English woman--is one of life's forgotten people. Psychologically damaged, addicted to drugs and cigarettes and booze, he's ill-equipped to do much of anything; he lives on the dole in public housing someplace in England, where his neighbors are Mrs. MacCallum, a dotty old Scots woman who talks to her late husband's photo, and a prostitute whose 15-year-old son, Marco, is Nigel's closest pal.

For all his relative poverty and isolation, though, Nigel is a pretty happy guy. Until, that is, his flat is invaded one morning by an aggressive cop named Phil, a post-9/11 Rambo type bent on catching terrorists. Phil has evidence that Nigel's half brother Karim is a terrorist, and he wants Nigel to help locate him. To persuade Nigel, he gives him some drugs, only to threaten later on that he'll arrest him for possession if he doesn't cooperate. So Nigel does, infiltrating a mosque and eventually wearing a "wire" to spy on the Muslim men he encounters there.

Meanwhile, Marco has a fight with his mum that culminates in her beating him up pretty badly, after which Nigel takes the boy in to live with him. And Mrs. Mac (as she's called), after letting Phil convince her that Nigel might be a terrorist himself--which leads her to go snooping around Nigel's flat and almost kill somebody--has an accident with her gas stove that sends her to live with Nigel as well while her place is being renovated.

So The People Next Door marries two themes: Nigel's manipulation by the police, which leads him to discover possible enlightenment in the Koran (turns out he likes going to the mosque); and Nigel's domestication by his new makeshift family. It's interesting and often warmly and/or darkly funny, but it's a lot for one play to successfully deal with, and I'm not sure that Adam finally makes the deeper points about either subject that he intends. The politics of The People Next Door are mostly facile: Phil is a boob, and a corrupt one at that; actions of him and people like him in the Establishment drive people like Nigel to seek solutions elsewhere, maybe in religion, maybe in suicide bombings. The relationships, meanwhile, are the stuff of sitcom, with gangsta rapper-wannabe Marco bonding with conservative old Mrs. Mac over Mince and Tatties.

There's stuff to commend The People Next Door to an American audience, notably the chance to hear the homespun wisdom of a bona fide survivor of an actual attack on her homeland by another country (Mrs. Mac, who lived through the Nazi air raids of London), along with the somewhat jarring experience of seeing 9/11 through our closest allies' alien eyes.

[Chris James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting microcosm of what was happening all over the world in September of 2001.

[Douglas Yannaghas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A post 9/11 black-hearted comedy with a pretty sweet sensibility. Would be a brilliant companion piece to Four Lions.