“… an intimate, tender, emotional and touching play. “
Julia Newbould
4 Bright Stars
Venue: Outhouse Theatre at Old Fitz
Sydney
Dates: Until Nov 29 2026
If we’re lucky we have a friend who has followed us through life – been there to understand our childhood, our ambitions, our crushes and first loves, our heartbreaks and our adult realities.
Playwright Jane Upton clearly had one of these friendships and this was the seed for Scenes from a Friendship.
Upton’s inspirational friendship began when she was seven years old and continued on a similar trajectory to the relationship depicted in her play. Her friend moved to London where he led a star-studded lifestyle while she remained in her hometown and eventually became a writer.
The friend then started training as a therapist and this made her revisit moments from their friendship when she felt she had let him down or he’d hurt her. This led to the uncomfortable conversations and translated brilliantly to the stage by Upton.
It’s an intimate, tender, emotional and touching play.
We first meet Billy and Jess as school students – best friends who walk to and from school together, share their deepest secrets and are each other’s greatest supporters. Like most friendships there is also a level of competitiveness which Upton explores sensitively in several scenes – whether it’s over friendships, romances, jobs and ambitions.
Billy and Jess are both keen on acting and want to go to drama school. Billy seems better placed to get into drama school and Jess seems to self-sabotage. But life isn’t simple and as Jess and Billy move through their lives they find themselves moving apart then back together and their roles in life change.
While there are ups and downs in the relationship and long periods apart – the relationship endures, and even towards the end of the play which has moved through decades of life, there are still things to learn about each other. Things they never knew or understood about their respective childhoods and environments.
Thomas Campbell plays Billy and Ainslie McGlinn is Jess in this two-hander.
Campbell is an extremely versatile talent and in Scenes from a Friendship he inhabits Billy completely – his vulnerability, his bravado, and his developing sexuality.
We follow his every development mesmerised as he ages before our eyes. His time in London, as an assistant agent, was perfect in capturing the mood of the time.
Both actors are passionate and we are fully invested in the progression of the relationship.
McGlinn is perfect as Jess. She’s sympathetic, protective, overbearing, annoying yet always likable. She’s the friend you want by your side – while acknowledging it wouldn’t always be easy.
Linda Nicholls-Gidley has worked to train both actors in their English midland accents which were natural and well-honed.
Set in the 1990s, the musical choices are spot on to inject the play with additional life. From the Spice Girls to Jefferson Starship’s Nothings Gonna Stop Us Now and scenes where Billy and Jess dance are pure magic. One, in particular, where Jess tells Billy that when she’s feeling nervous she pretends she’s in New York and has a particular dance routine to illustrate.
Craig Baldwin as director and stage designer has provided the play with effective staging.
The Old Fitz theatre has been reconfigured to have the audience seated on both sides of the stage to bring the audience and actors into a shared experience. When the play starts, we feel we are with our friends who are acting out scenes from our own friendships with a depth of honesty and simplicity.
Aron Murray has made the lighting design particularly effective, with simple spotlighting directing the audiences’ attention where needed.
Old Fitz is continuing to maintain its high standard with this offering. The audience is very engaged and a scene where Jess reads a wedding speech for Billy and says, everyone raise your glass, half the audience raised imaginary glasses.
4 bright stars
Julia Newbould, Theatre Now
