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Review
Review: Abigail’s Party
Mike Leigh’s absurd comedy of manners is still excruciatingly funny at the Harold Pinter Theatre
Alison Steadman’s famous turn as Beverly in Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party is the sort of performance that British comics pin to their vision boards. The question at the forefront of everyone’s minds when Tamzin Outhwaite assumed the role for director Nadia Fall’s stage revival was undoubtedly: how will Outhwaite stack up? Magnificently, is the answer, turning Beverly from expert caricature to a conniving, controlling social climber, whose unsettling presence on stage puts her in step with Clytemnestra and Lady Macbeth. In the funniest way possible.
It’s 1977, and in this middle-class housing development, Beverly and her long-suffering husband Laurence (Kevin Bishop) are hosting new neighbours Angela (Lauren Patel) and Tony (Omar Malik). Beverly’s main aim, as becomes clear fairly quickly, is to be desired by both of them; she rules over Angela like a high school mean girl and drapes herself on Tony at every opportunity. Also in attendance is Sue (Pandora Colin), whose fifteen-year-old daughter Abigail is having a party. As the inane chatter continues and the music comes pounding through the walls, Abigail’s party seems like a more interesting place to be – until things in Beverly’s living room take a drastic turn.
Peter McKintosh’s design traps us in Beverly’s boxy house, where her husband hangs Lowrys and Van Goghs over her psychedelic wallpaper and she proudly shows off her fibreglass lamp. It’s pantomime period, from Beverly’s thick layers of blue eyeshadow to Tony’s white wide collar to the foil ball of cheese and pineapple sticks that Beverly pushes on her guests at every opportunity. Over the shaggy carpet Outhwaite dances to Demis Roussos, hungry for the attention of the assembled company, if only to spite Laurence.
Kevin Bishop is excellent as Laurence, spiteful and pathetic, and revealing worse parts of himself as the evening wears on. Lauren Patel is vacuous and easily led as Angela, whilst Omar Malik manages to make her unloving husband Tony into a character we both dislike and pity. Pandora Colin is excellent as Sue, barely holding onto her dignity despite Beverly’s attempts to rip it from her hands, and resigned to the fact that Abigail will do what she likes. The joke of the piece is, of course, that the invisible Abigail is having a far better time than anyone onstage, and that we the audience are just as desperate for a peak through the windows as any of Beverly’s guests. Inane, insufferable and totally transparent these people may be, but they’re irrationally fun to spend time with all the same.
Abigail’s Party is playing at the Harold Pinter Theatre until 19 September – find tickets here
