Gin, Demis Roussos and simmering marital despair; Mike Leigh’s seminal suburban satire gets a magnetic West End revival, led by a superb Tamzin Outhwaite as its hostess from hell…
The curtain rises and the stage is an explosion of retro, orange, 70s energy, the music is blaring, the disco ball is shining and Beverly has made her living room coffee table her own personal dancefloor. The star of Mike Leigh’s 1977 suburban social comedy, Beverly is at the core of this cocktail party with an unfortunate twist.
Brought to boisterous life at Harold Pinter Theatre by Tamzin Outhwaite, she is an Essex housewife extraordinaire, all bouncy blowout curls and a fantastic, flowing, floor-length tangerine gown as dynamic as her hair as she dances across the stage.
A gin and tonic in one hand, a cigarette lazily held in the other, Beverly directs the party with slightly menacing ferocity, instructing her guests on their every movement and jumping into the conversation at every possible moment. ‘Ice and a slice of lemon?’ is a refrain that quickly turns from inviting to threatening.
Having not seen Abigail’s Party in either its TV form or the first rendition of this revival, directed by Nadia Fall, when it was originally presented at Theatre Royal Stratford East in 2024, I came with few preconceptions and no strong ties to the much-lauded Alison Steadman who first brought our esteemed hostess to life and still looms large in many audience members’ memories.
I had expected an intentionally kitschy 70s suburban satire lightly laced with British snobbery. While set designer Peter McKintosh strikes the exact right tone of kitsch and the wallpaper is fantastically naff, there are more layers to this party than I had anticipated.
Beverly has thrown this party to welcome young couple Angela (Lauren Patel) and Tony (Omar Malik) to the neighbourhood. A nurse and a former Crystal Palace footballer turned computer operator, they have been married three years, but Tony doesn’t seem to be his wife’s biggest fan.
Prim and proper neighbour Sue from down the road is also in attendance. She has lived there for a very long time, has the oldest house and is, ostensibly, seeking refuge at Beverly’s as her teenage daughter Abigail, who we never see on stage, is hosting a riotous party of her own that evening. The play is dark, not just in its final moments where things take the worst possible turn, but in scattered moments of bleakness throughout and particularly in its exploration of three unhappy marriages.
An otherwise quite quiet Tony repeatedly snaps at Angela, who cuts her husband off and jokes that he’s not so sure about marriage since marrying her. When Beverly is asked if she would’ve married her husband Laurence (Kevin Bishop) if she’d lived with him for a year first, she answers with a resolute no. She spends the evening deriding him while obviously and increasingly flirting with a very tall Tony. Sue, meanwhile, is divorced from her architect husband, who has since remarried and comes over once a week for Sunday lunch.
In many ways, the play is a psychological drama, with Beverly directing her guests literally to within an inch of their lives. The party amps up in tone over the evening as the sounds of Abigail’s party down the road get louder, with conversation moving from run-of-the-mill, repetitive musings on housing prices and olives to something much darker, particularly in the second act. But Beverly is far more than an unhappy, controlling housewife and Outhwaite does a superb job of teasing out her frustration and despair through her relentless manoeuvering of her guests.
But the play is also, undoubtedly, hilarious. Outhwaite, in particular, is gloriously funny and the physical comedy is top notch. Patel is delightfully unaware of the extent of Beverly’s manipulation, wide-eyed and excited, and Malik elicits laughter with the subtlest nod or a monosyllabic “Ta”. As Laurence, the most situationally-aware of the group, whips himself into a frenzy, Bishop perfectly treads the line of frantic energy without veering into excess.
And Pandora Colin is enjoyably awkward and on edge all evening as Sue, the representative middle-class, who has lived there the longest and knows to come bearing a gift — a bottle of Beaujolais that Beverly promptly puts in the fridge. Beverly’s fully stocked bar of Bacardi, gin and anything else you might like with ice and lemon is, notably, lacking in sherry — Sue’s drink of choice.
There are a few jokes that don’t land as well as they might have 50 years ago — particularly around the men going to check in on Abigail’s party and how the teenage girls might react to them — and there is an uncomfortable racial undertone to Laurence’s comments about “changes in their neighbourhood” with the arrival of Patel’s Ange and Malik’s Ton.
The show is only on for a limited run, so if you are in for a surprisingly nuanced, Donna Summer-fuelled evening of 70s decadence, grab a Bacardi and coke — with a light ale as a chaser — and shimmy your way to Harold Pinter Theatre.
Abigail’s Party runs at Harold Pinter Theatre until 19th September. For more information, and for tickets, please visit www.haroldpintertheatre.co.uk.
Photos by Ellie Kurtz
