Living with an Alien by Esme Waters
At the edge of domestic unease and cosmic dread, Esme Waters’ Living with an Alien finds its pulse. Set in the shabby-comfortable living room of Michael and Lara, the play folds a faltering marriage into a story of extraterrestrial menace. The result feels both familiar and uncanny – a marriage drama that mutates into science-fiction horror without losing its human shape.
The pacing accelerates with the arrival of the supporting cast: the sharp-tongued, hypochondriac Uncle Frederick, whose complaints earn the biggest laughs of the night; the cynical psychiatrist Graham; and Adrian, a sardonic journalist. When Dr Simon appears with news of a local farmhand found murdered, the talk darkens. His report of “non-human” wounds pushes the domestic story into something far wider.
Even in this early staged reading, Living with an Alien shows a writer confident in tone and structure. Esme Waters, a Lincolnshire playwright whose debut was published by Next Stage Press in 2024 after festival readings in London and abroad, has also seen her second play, Mr Thrushby’s Adventure, developed internationally – with readings in Mexico’s Lake Chapala region through The BRAVO! Theatre and in Poughkeepsie, New York. These projects mark her as a writer extending British new writing into wider spheres.
Living with an Alien is an imaginative, satisfyingly dark work that balances absurdity with wit. The mix of the ordinary – a messy affair, a grouchy uncle – and the truly bizarre kept the audience laughing, guessing, and leaning forward right up until the sirens of the police car approach in the final moments.
Cast & Creatives
- Collective Acting Studio, Hornsey Road Baths, London, https://collectiveactingstudio.co.uk/
- Showing - 24 October 2025
- Writer - Esme Waters
- Director: Sophie
- Script & Performance Rights: https://www.nextstagepress.com/living-with-an-alien/
- Cast:
Michael: Botan
Lara: Maria
Frederick: Michael
Graham: Jack P
Alisha: Aaliya
Simon: Nikiah
Adrian: Halid
Narrator & Police Officer: Sophie
A darkly comic thriller where marital secrets take an otherworldly turn
Summary
Esme Waters’ “Living with an Alien” is a sharp, funny, and unsettling new play that blends drawing-room wit with science-fiction tension. Beneath its laughter and domestic quarrels lies a growing unease that erupts into genuine shock by the final moments. Smartly written and full of character, it shows Waters as a playwright capable of turning the familiar rhythms of a marriage drama into something strange, dark, and irresistibly entertaining.
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