Serge (Sewell) is a suave, wealthy professional who has just paid 100,000 euros ($104,000) for a blank white canvas by a fashionable artist. He proudly displays the painting to his old friend Marc (Paul Ritter), a cynic with more traditional tastes, whose reaction quickly turns from mocking laughter to withering scorn. Marc’s bitter disappointment at Serge’s surrender to the vacant values of modish modernism spills over into their mutual friendship with Yvan (Tim Key), the good-natured beta male of the trio, who is already anguished by the tortuous preparations for his forthcoming wedding. Though it makes several appearances during the play, the painting itself soon becomes a MacGuffin, a catalyst for amplifying hidden tensions in this longstanding three-way bromance. As their disagreement escalates, Serge and Marc insult each other’s arrogance, snobbery, lack of humor, choice of life partners and betrayal of their former closeness. When Yvan plays peacemaker, he is derided by the others as a "coward" and an "amoeba," and even suffers a minor injury when he tries to defuse a brief scuffle. But just as their friendship looks doomed, an inspired act of vandalism helps restore the surface air of cordial equilibrium between these three old sparring partners.

Genre: Comedy
Written by: Yasmina Reza
Director: Matthew Warchus

Starring: Tim Key, Paul Ritter and Rufus Sewell