Running at the Rose Theatre until 16 November.
OUR VERDICT
PAMELA RAITH
Everyone wants to go to Abigail’s Party! This is a play about what we now call ‘fomo’. Set in the 1970s, people then called it ‘social climbing’.
The middle-class condition is based on the premise that we care desperately about other people's thoughts and make an enormous effort to save this face. Mike Leigh’s work tends to be about how this mask can slip, with both hilarious and moving consequences.
The veneer of politesse dissolves in a drench of alcohol and fog of fags to reveal the snobbery, hostility and sad vulnerability of the suburbs. Savagery bubbles underneath like a Welsh rarebit with the pretensions of a cheese soufflé.
Some saw this as Leigh sneering at the bourgeois world when it had its first improvised staging at the Hampstead Theatre in 1977. Others see it as a more affectionate take.
This is a pitch-perfect production at Kingston’s Rose, in association with Northern Stage, directed by Jack Bradfield, who, despite looking about 13 years old, is already award-winning.
It retains enough of the 70s schtick to appeal to the lags, yet the hints around race and domestic violence give it a relevance that still prickles our skin.
The set is unashamedly throwback, featuring a genuine S-reg Mini of the period (‘just like the one we had!’). And, of course, we have the requisite white shagpile carpet, the leather sofas and a soundtrack including Jose Feliciano’s excellent and long-forgotten version of Light My Fire.
The play revolves around Beverly, who is hosting a drinks party for some neighbours in a home counties cul-de-sac. One of them has a daughter called Abigail, who we learn is 15 and having a party at her house, to which we are not invited.
We never get to meet Abigail, although we fear for her when, as we learn from the noises off, her gathering teeters then tumbles out of control. Meanwhile, five grown-ups gather at Beverly’s soiree, and the situation similarly disintegrates.
Involved are her estate agent husband Laurence, newly arrived aspirationals Angela and Tony, and the (shockingly) divorced Susan, who is the mother of the partying Abigail.
PAMELA RAITH
They chat with delicious awkwardness, smoke continuously (even if they don’t really want to, but Beverly insists) and drink. And drink. Again, Beverly makes certain of it. The silences are murderous. The social mores of that time feel both nostalgic and bang up-to-date.
When house prices inevitably got a mention (£21,000!), a murmur went through the Kingston crowd. I have fond memories of such gatherings from my childhood: the smell of cigar smoke, the clinking of glasses and the raucous bursts of male laughter wafting up the stairs to my bedroom.
It's hard not to think of Alison Steadman’s original Beverly, so here, Laura Rogers has her work cut out. But she holds her end up well. Chaya Gupta as Angela is fittingly mousey, and Joe Blakemore (he of the unconscionably long legs) is convincing as the ex-footballing, taciturn Tony, fighting off the increasingly lascivious attentions of Beverly.
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PAMELA RAITH
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PAMELA RAITH
Amy Rockson offers a sickening Susan with an appropriately restrained hysteria.
The show is stolen by Leander Deeny as Beverley’s henpecked husband Laurence.
His Basil Fawltyesque quiet desperation builds to a classic slapstick crescendo.
It is thoughtfully feel-good fare. I had a smile across my face for most of the evening.
Abigail’s having a party and this one you are invited to. You must go!
