Abigail's Party

Abigail's Party
Abigail's Party UK DVD cover
Written by	Mike Leigh
Characters	Beverley Moss Laurence Moss Tony Cooper Angela Cooper Susan Lawson
Date premiered	April 1977 (1977-04)
Place premiered	Hampstead Theatre, London
Original language	English

Abigail's Party is a play for stage and television, devised and directed in 1977 by

The stage play was first performed at the Hampstead Theatre on 18 April 1977, enjoying great success, leading to a revival over the summer of that year, which was another sellout.[1]

The

The first thing I’d say is, this is not a film. And not only that: for a film-maker, it’s a work of deep embarrassment and pain. There is no piece of work for which I have been responsible as director by which I’m embarrassed, apart from Abigail’s Party. Not for the play or its content [...] It is a stage play that was wheeled into a television studio. It’s slightly compromised as a play, but not too seriously. However, as a piece of craft, it’s simply appalling.[3]

Original cast

The original production starred Alison Steadman as Beverley, and Tim Stern as her husband Laurence. They are holding a drinks party for their new neighbours, Angela (Janine Duvitski) and her husband Tony (John Salthouse). They also invite Susan (Thelma Whiteley), another neighbour. Abigail herself is never seen—she is Susan's 15-year-old daughter, who is holding her first teenager party next door. For the television version, the original cast reprised their roles, with the exception of Thelma Whiteley, who was replaced by Harriet Reynolds.

Each of the original cast largely devised the

Beverley Moss

An ex-

Jose Feliciano/Demis Roussos, Tom Jones) and art (kitsch erotica) to be every bit as good as that of her husband. Immensely proud of her home, she nonetheless admits that she cannot use the gadgets in her kitchen. Throughout the evening, Beverley offers her guests drinks and cigarettes (despite the fact that Tony and Angela have recently given up), which they usually refuse but end up taking due to her being unable to take no for an answer. Beverley effectively forces her guests to agree with her on most topics, for instance on the music they should listen to, or whether olives should be served, in each instance using their apparent consensus to score points with her husband. Despite her "sophisticated" tastes and carefully groomed appearance, she was described by Alan Bennett as having "shoulders like a lifeguard, and a walk to match." According to the critic Michael Coveney, "Beverley is undoubtedly a monster. But she is also a deeply sad and vulnerable monster… The whole point about Beverley is that she is childless, and there is a sense in which that grotesque exterior carapace is a mask of inner desolation."^[4]

Interviewed in 2012, Steadman said of the play, "Overnight, that piece was incredibly powerful. ... They were very strong, identifiable characters. We laugh at them because we say, 'Oh my God, I know that person, thank goodness I'm not like that', and you cringe, but you know they're true. We can safely sit in the comfort of our living rooms or theatre seats and laugh our heads off. But we've perhaps all got a bit of Beverley in us."[5] In a 2017 piece written for The Guardian, Leigh described Beverley as "an aspirational working class girl who is totally preoccupied with appearances and received notions of behaviour and taste. A bundle of contradictions, she espouses the idea of people freely enjoying themselves, yet endlessly bullies everybody into doing what she wrongly thinks they'll enjoy, or what is good for them. But, while she may be perceived as monstrous, she is in fact vulnerable, insecure and sad".^[1]

Laurence Moss

Beethoven, which he forces on his guests at unfortunate moments. He seems powerless to compete with Beverley's more flamboyant persona, and compensates by working too much, as his wife points out on several occasions. He considers a brisk handshake to be correct etiquette after a dance. While Laurence starts off behaving normally during the party, as he becomes increasingly hen-pecked by his wife, he begins to act in a more neurotic

manner, to the point where he too becomes an annoyance to his guests. While Beverley embraces the increasing "cosmopolitanism" of the area, Laurence does not.

Tony Cooper

Tony works in computing—merely as a computer operator, his wife twice points out—and used to play professional football for Crystal Palace but it "didn't work out". Tony is quiet throughout most of the play, usually appearing uneasy and giving one-word answers, but towards the end he becomes somewhat irate and quick-tempered, particularly with his wife. Beverley flirts with him in the second half of the play, much to Laurence's annoyance. At one point, Beverley asks Angela if he is violent. "No, he's not violent. Just a bit nasty. Like, the other day, he said to me, he'd like to sellotape my mouth. And that's not very nice, is it?" "It certainly isn't, Ange!" replies Beverley. Leigh later attributed Tony's aggression to an underlying shyness and self-consciousness.^[1] The surname Cooper was not mentioned in the original script or teleplay, and is taken from a picture on the Mike Leigh at the BBC DVD box set.

Angela Cooper

Tony's wife. A

heart attack. Leigh noted that "underneath Angela's apparent silliness is the tough, practical reliability of an experienced working nurse".^[1]

Susan Lawson

Sue was getting divorced at the same time the other characters were getting married, as pointed out by Angela. A quiet character who does not really have the courage to say no, she is the only woman visibly not "dressed-up" for the gathering; clearly, she would rather be elsewhere. Throughout the play, Laurence attempts to find common ground with her. As originally cast, she towers over the diminutive Laurence, and Beverley's exhortations for her to dance with him only compound her awkwardness. Sue's 15-year-old daughter Abigail is holding the party from which the play's title is derived. Her 11-year-old son Jeremy has gone to stay elsewhere. Sue appears to be anxious about the party, and at one point is sick in the bathroom.

Sue represents the middle class, being the ex-wife of an architect and living in one of the older houses on the street. She also brings a bottle of wine, and has not yet eaten, indicating that she is expecting dinner, as opposed to an extended evening of drinks. The others present have already had their "tea". Beverley and Laurence represent the aspirational lower middle class, and Tony and Angela—the "new arrivals"—are also lower middle class, but Tony is less successful than Laurence.

Despite their similar background, Laurence seeks to differentiate between himself and Tony by highlighting the differences in their general level of culture, and makes a couple of condescending comments directed at him, and/or for Sue's benefit. For example, Laurence shows off a leather-bound collected works of Shakespeare to Sue (which we know are unread), after pointedly asking Tony if he reads, insinuating that he does not.

Critical response

In a list of the

Some critics, such as Tom Paulin, have responded more negatively, saying that Abigail's Party appears to represent a middle-class schadenfreude, with the only true middle-class character, Sue, looking on at the antics of the couples with disdain.^[7] Likewise, Dennis Potter wrote a critical review of the play in The Sunday Times, saying it was "based on nothing more edifying than rancid disdain, for it is a prolonged jeer, twitching with genuine hatred, about the dreadful suburban tastes of the dreadful lower middle classes". Leigh has rejected this, describing it as a tragi-comedy which is "sympathetic to all the characters, whatever their foibles, not least Beverley... The play is a lamentation, not a sneer".^[1] He has also argued that the characters (Beverley and Laurence in particular) reflected the real-life behaviour of aspiring couples in mid-1970s suburbia.

Writing in The Independent in 2002, David Thomson noted that Beverley's gauche storing of the beaujolais in the refrigerator had become standard practice; "the gaffe has turned suave."^[8]

Revival

The TV version was released on VHS in 1984 and DVD in 2003.

The play was staged in London's West End in 2003 with Elizabeth Berrington as Beverley. It was revived in Wolverhampton at the Grand Theatre (2005), and at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter (2006).

Interviewed in 2009, writer Leigh said: "Of course I recognise the enduring popularity of Abigail's Party. It still hits a nerve about the way we live. It's real even though it's apparently a heightened and comic play. It's a reflection of the realities of how we live on several different levels. It's about aspirationalism and materialism, love and relationships. Like much of my work, it's about the disease I call 'the done thing'—basically, keeping up with the Joneses. It's actually quite a complex play. People may not analyse its complexity but it's so popular precisely for that reason."^[9]

In March 2012, a new revival of the play directed by Lindsay Posner opened at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. Starring Jill Halfpenny as Beverley, Joe Absolom as Tony, Natalie Casey as Angela, Susannah Harker as Sue and Andy Nyman as Laurence, it subsequently transferred to Wyndham's Theatre in the West End. Commenting on the character, Halfpenny said, "To her mind Beverley isn't a monster and even warrants sympathy. "When you learn about her upbringing—her mother and father haven't spoken to her for 20 years—you see why a woman who's been brought up like that and carries so many insecurities could take them out on others."^[10]

In May 2013, Abigail's Party played at San Francisco Playhouse and received outstanding reviews.^[11]

In March 2017, a new revival of Abigail's Party opened at the Theatre Royal Bath as a 40th anniversary production, starring Amanda Abbington as Beverley, Ciarán Owens as Tony, Charlotte Mills as Angela, Rose Keegan as Sue, and Ben Caplan as Laurence.

In November 2021, a further revival of Abigail's Party opened at the Park Theatre Finsbury Park, starring Kellie Shirlie as Beverley, Matt Di Angelo as Tony and Ryan Early as Laurence.^[12]

Use in other media

In 1985 the pop band ABC sampled dialogue from the play, by Beverley, on the 12" remix of their single "Vanity Kills".^[13]

References