Review: Abigail’s Party, Richmond Theatre (and on tour) ★★★★

Tamzin Outhwaite’s Beverly oozes flirtation, condescension and disdain in this touring revival of Mike Leigh’s 1970s suburban satire

Beverly is a suburban housewife in 1970s suburbia, and this is very much her story: a bully who cajoles everyone to drink more, all the while flirting her way round the room. It matters because it looks hard at 70s social norms and marriages, and this touring revival, by Theatre Royal Bath Productions of the Stratford East production, is a treat for both audiences who haven’t seen it and want to, as much as for those who already count themselves fans of the play or the film.

The set is pure 1970s, and the glasses, cups and food are perfect period detail: the olives, peanuts, tiny crisp bowl and cheese and pineapple hedgehog were the ultimate 1970s nibbles. Peter McKintosh, who designed the set and costumes, has said he wanted the decor to do the decade justice without falling into the most alarming design choices of the period, and that he wanted the world to come out of Beverly’s own character rather than simply decorate the stage. It works. This feels like somewhere Beverly actually lives.

A stuck wall on the night I saw it created a false start to the show but was quickly fixed and did not dent the evening. The pacing is excellent: things build to a crescendo, then crash, and the tension mounts effectively as the evening becomes unbalanced with too much booze and Beverly controlling everyone in the room. The strobe lighting at the end of the interval firmly places us back in the evening, and back in the unease.

Costume and hair do a lot of storytelling here. Tamzin Outhwaite‘s hair gets more and more dishevelled as she drinks, and her billowing orange kaftan becomes an extra layer of seduction, used to envelop and extend her dancing into something more sultry.

The writing appears on the surface almost a middle class drawing room play but this belies a much deeper household examination. The dialogue sounds real for these characters: the interplay, the put downs, the classism. Beverly wants to be on top, in control, and seen as the best, and lines like “this was expensive” and “our house is bigger” land exactly as they should. It comes alive as she bullies and as she gets drunker, and the politeness of the neighbours is precisely what allows her to manipulate them. In little touches though, she exposes herself: pronouncing Beaujolais as boh-jealous rather than boh-zho-LAY.

The chemistry between performers is utterly believable. Lauren Patel‘s Angela is desperate to fit in with her older and more established neighbours, and Pandora Colin‘s Sue is worried and ill at ease throughout, clearly uncomfortable in a room she can’t quite escape. Outhwaite‘s Beverly is suitably ghastly: flirtation, condescension and disdain oozes out of every line and gesture.

The men in this piece can often be overlooked, but Laurence (Kevin Bishop) and Tony (Omar Malik) act as important foils. As Beverly’s frustrated, over-worked husband, Bishop‘s Laurence captures his desire to maintain a veneer of civility over mounting anger. Malik‘s Tony is as alert and watchful as he is taciturn.

This is social satire at its most piercing, tragi-comic in the truest sense: we laugh, but it’s painful, and Beverly is the cringe engine of the whole story. Reaching for Bacardi, Demis Roussos and tinned “taste” to elevate her own status, she pretends to be a good hostess, maybe even to herself, while trying to control absolutely everyone around her. There’s something of Malvolio about her: a woman whose own pretensions are exactly what end up trapping her. Overall, this is a clever and darkly comic look at the cost of 70s suburban aspiration.

Photos credit: Mark Senior