# Invisible Friends > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Invisible_Friends > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Invisible_Friends.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Friends > Source revision: 1355927953 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) For the psychological and social phenomenon, see [Imaginary friend](/source/Imaginary_friend). This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (April 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message) 1989 children's play by Alan Ayckbourn Invisible Friends Written by Alan Ayckbourn Characters Lucy Joy Walt Gary Zara Felix Chuck Subject Imaginary friends Ayckbourn chronology The Revengers' Comedies (1989) Body Language (1990) ***Invisible Friends*** is a 1989 children's play by the [British](/source/British_people) [playwright](/source/Playwright) [Alan Ayckbourn](/source/Alan_Ayckbourn). It was written as a starring vehicle for actress [Emma Chambers](/source/Emma_Chambers) who portrayed the central character of teenager Lucy Baines in the original production at the [Stephen Joseph Theatre](/source/Stephen_Joseph_Theatre) in [Scarborough](/source/Scarborough%2C_North_Yorkshire), [North Yorkshire](/source/North_Yorkshire), [England](/source/England) for its run in late 1989 and early 1990.[1] In Ayckbourn's wider ouvre of plays, *Invisible Friends* can be seen as having similarities to *[The Boy who Fell into a Book](/source/The_Boy_Who_Fell_into_a_Book)* (1998) (which also deals with childhood dreams and nightmares), and in theme, the plays for adults *[Woman in Mind](/source/Woman_in_Mind)* (1989) and *Wildest Dreams* (1991). Both works where an imagined fantasy goes too far for the characters. *Invisible Friends* is most often seen as a companion play to specifically *[Woman in Mind](/source/Woman_in_Mind).* *In both cases, they show the dangers of living your fantasy life at the expense of your real life and how you can get into some sort of trouble by confusing the two. In Lucy's tale, it became a moral fable about trying to love the people you live with, rather than the people you invent.*[2] Ayckbourn said of writing *Invisible Friends*: *There is a joke, which I think I may have started, that I'm rewriting all my adult plays for kids. This is gentler* *(...) I'm also trying to retain as much as possible the colours that I put into the adult plays. (...) I would like them to laugh, of course, and to be excited, and to be afraid, but not so they can't sleep. My ulterior motive is to excite the children into coming back when they're 25, so we haven't got another lost generation saying: 'the theatre is something I don't understand.'"*[2] ## Summary Lucy Baines, "*an ordinary teenager*", escapes her unhappiness with her family, joyless mother Joy, TV obsessed Walt, and the barely interactive Gary, by reviving her imaginary childhood friend, Zara. Lucy's family, however, do not approve of this imaginative thinking. After a thunderstorm, Zara suddenly appears to Lucy, and after Lucy snaps at her family, Zara helps Lucy to make Gary, Joy and Walt invisible. In a nightmarish act 2, Lucy stumbles into an alternate universe where she lives with the now visible Zara and Zara's "family". For a while, Lucy feels much happier with the "new" family and is delighted she no longer has to endure Joy, Walt, or Gary. However, the family of father Felix and brother Chuck are bizarre and eerie. Like Zara they seem to hold telekinetic powers that allow them to arrange objects. Zara also outstays her welcome and soon manipulates Lucy into catering and cleaning for Chuck and Felix and herself. The family turn on Lucy after an argument and kick her out. In an effort to reclaim what was once hers, Lucy attempts to enter the house again but is caught and a confrontation ensues. In the end Lucy manages to defeat Zara, Chuck, and Felix and make her family visible again, and they begin to pay more attention to her. The entire second act of the play can be interpreted as a [dream](/source/Dream) or nightmare that Lucy has, which the stage directions support [3], or a production can choose to make Zara and the invisible family's apperance and disappearance more ambiguous or psychologically more troubling. ## References 1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** Jeffels, David (4 January 1990). "Regional Reviews: Invisible Friends". *The Stage and Television Today* (5673): 19. 1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-:0_2-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-:0_2-1) ["Alan Ayckbourn Plays: Invisible Friends"](https://web.archive.org/web/20120310202903/http://invisblefriends.alanayckbourn.net/IF_AAQuotes.htm). *invisblefriends.alanayckbourn.net*. Archived from [the original](http://invisblefriends.alanayckbourn.net/IF_AAQuotes.htm) on 10 March 2012. Retrieved 24 May 2026. 1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Ayckbourn, Alan (1991). *Invisible friends*. London: Faber and Faber. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-571-14476-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-571-14476-1). - Allen, Paul (2004). *A Pocket Guide to Alan Ayckbourn Plays*. [Faber and Faber](/source/Faber_and_Faber). [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0-571-21492-4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-571-21492-4). - ["*Invisible Friends*"](https://web.archive.org/web/20120310202317/http://invisblefriends.alanayckbourn.net/index.htm). *Alanayckbourn.net*. Archived from [the original](http://invisblefriends.alanayckbourn.net/index.htm) on 10 March 2012. Retrieved 21 August 2010. v t e The plays of Alan Ayckbourn Plays The Square Cat Love After All Dad's Tale Standing Room Only Christmas v Mastermind Mr Whatnot Relatively Speaking The Sparrow How the Other Half Loves Family Circles Time and Time Again Absurd Person Singular The Norman Conquests: Table Manners, Living Together, Round and Round the Garden Absent Friends Confusions Jeeves (musical) Bedroom Farce Just Between Ourselves Ten Times Table Joking Apart Sisterly Feelings Taking Steps Suburban Strains Season's Greetings Way Upstream Making Tracks Intimate Exchanges It Could Be Any One Of Us A Chorus of Disapproval Woman in Mind A Small Family Business Henceforward... Man of the Moment Mr A's Amazing Maze Plays The Revengers' Comedies Invisible Friends Body Language This Is Where We Came In Callisto 5 Wildest Dreams My Very Own Story Time of My Life Dreams from a Summer House Communicating Doors Haunting Julia The Musical Jigsaw Play A Word from Our Sponsor The Champion of Paribanou Things We Do for Love Comic Potential The Boy Who Fell Into a Book House and Garden: House, Garden Virtual Reality Whenever Damsels in Distress: GamePlan, FlatSpin, RolePlay Snake in the Grass The Jollies Sugar Daddies Orvin – Champion Of Champions My Sister Sadie Drowning on Dry Land Private Fears in Public Places Miss Yesterday Improbable Fiction If I Were You Things That Go Bump: Life and Beth Awaking Beauty My Wonderful Day Life of Riley Neighbourhood Watch One-act plays Countdown (from Mixed Doubles) Confusions: Mother Figure, Drinking Companion, Between Mouthfuls, Gosforth's Fete, A Talk in the Park A Cut in the Rates This article on a play from the 1980s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information. - [v](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:1980s-play-stub) - [t](/source/Template_talk%3A1980s-play-stub) - [e](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:EditPage/Template:1980s-play-stub) --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Invisible Friends](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Friends) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Friends?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.