Put together as much through a rehearsal process of improvisation and experimentation as through a set script, director/playwright Mike Leigh’s “Abigail’s Party” was the London stage hit of the season in 1977, with the production revived within the same year and immediately developed into the sort of TV play that everyone talks about the next day. It’s a finely observed slice of suburban life, complete with the sort of clashes of aspirational taste (Van Gogh or that print of the naked couple and the swan? Classical music or Jose Feliciano?) that make your skin crawl. Defining the sort of humour that balances its audience on a tightrope between hilarity and embarrassment, it laces every laugh with a cringe of recognition.  But there has to be some hesitation in staging a piece so supremely, agonisingly accurate in crystallising the mode of a moment, and director Jack Bradfield must be congratulated for his confident, sure-footed handling of a seventies satire that might (horrible thought) now have become tinged with nostalgia. Plot is simple – in a shiny, well-heeled district of suburbia 15-year old Abigail (never seen) is having a house party with the reluctant permission of Susan, her quiet divorcee mother. Susan takes refuge next door with neighbour Beverly and her over-worked estate agent husband plus newcomers to the area, nurse Angela and taciturn (but fit) ex-footballer Tony. Interaction of these characters reveals an agonising range of social styles and expectations but it’s Beverly who dominates the stage. She doles out endless alcohol, cigarettes, platitudes and opinions as the queen of her environment (the excellent set here gathering together key elements of shiny contemporary furnishings so that it looks like an Ideal Homes exhibition rather than a home.) She’s a monster, sailing without self-awareness into the stormy waters of tactlessness and criticism as she patronises the other women, demolishes her husband and comes on to Tony. She’s also splendid, a creature of short term demands that don’t have to be examined or contextualised – just met. Laura Rogers’ (natural) Welsh accent in this role came as a surprise but it gave the character her own voice while retaining the essential tone of Beverly’s supreme self-interest. The play would be impossible (I hope) to update and there were moments where modern casting did clash with original text (if Susan is black, she’d hardly be worried by the appearance of a couple of “coloured” chaps at her daughter’s party.) It also came with multiple warnings, plus the reassurance that the cigarettes weren’t real but that audience members with a peanut allergy might not want to sit too close to the stage. It feels as though the past now has, like Beverley’s sofa, to be wrapped in plastic before we can look at it, but given the tenor of the ghastly evening we witness on stage, a protective barrier isn’t such a bad idea.

Gail-Nina Anderson