Seats heated by tension and domestic calamity abound, director Natalie Abrahami, along with the cast and crew, breathed new life into Mike Leigh’s cult classic, Abigail’s Party. An iconic satirical observation on the aspirations of the new and emerging middle class of ‘70s Britain, Leigh put society on the TV, and now, it's in the Royal Exchange round.
Abigail’s Party centres around, well, a party. The hosts, Beverly (played by Corrie legend Kym Marsh), and Lawrence (Graeme Hawley), are of the socially ambitious type. Lawrence, a work-a-holic estate agent and Bev, a bored-housewife-turned-aspiring-socialite, represent a tenuous tether, hanging off the balance between a lower and higher social class, and staying far away from any lace net curtains.
Running parallel to their neighbour Sue’s daughter Abigail’s party, a raucous teenage riot, they invite their neighbours around for a respectable gathering. Bev listens to Donna Summer whilst she prepares cheese and pineapple on sticks, Lawrence wants to dish out olives accompanied by classical music.
Their guests, new working-class neighbours Angela (Yasmin Taheri) and Tony (Kyle Rowe) arrive. Bev criticises Angela’s lipstick choice and Tony lurches out one word answers in a thick Mancunian accent. Bev’s elongated vowels signify her desire to leave her background, whatever that might be, but a North-western twang shines through despite her efforts. Marsh’s performance really led the show, from her high-pitched fusses, to her floaty, sensual dancing, to her fiery timed quips spat out at her stuffy husband.
The cast harmonised perfectly together, performing a melodic rendition of a discordant song. Although Bev existed as the centrifugal force, pulling and pushing everyone into this claustrophobic living room, each character held their own. Sue’s (Tupele Dorgu) anxious minutiae of movement, Lawrence’s seething anger, and Tony and Angela’s comedic prowess all formulated to create a satirical symphony of British sensibilities, or lack thereof. Steady roars of laughter erupted from the crowd, injecting into a gathering punctuated with unease.
The stage design was spectacular; concrete beams in the shape of a house lifted up as the play started, revealing a kitschy living room straight from 1977. Finished off with the gaudiest golden chandelier accented with fibre optic light, the skeletal framework of this house on 13 Richmond Road played to tensions that work so well in theatre, of the outside looking in. The audience felt like they were sitting on the couch, standing by the cocktail bar, or twitching through the curtains.
Before seeing the play, I was interested to see how the class tensions so incremental to Leigh’s writing would be dealt with today. Leigh was writing from a time where class was a moveable construct, the idea of climbing from and to was much more in reach than it is today. Now, class tensions are incremental to our everyday lives but the ladder that allows a person to move in between, to arrive at their chosen destination, isn’t so sturdy. Leigh captured the ‘70s zeitgeist profoundly and Abrahami echoes this completely. Moving from Essex to the Royal Exchange, replete with the tragicomic entertainment that established Abigail's Party, allows the play to now become a classic for younger audiences.
Tensions were so cleverly demonstrated within Lawrence and Bev’s marriage, in their frustration toward one another. Hawley and Marsh’s command over the script was not only hilarious but allowed the audience to understand this obsession with perception, and how that engenders the breakdown of social relationships. The sexual allure of Tony and Bev's passive class-aggressiveness towards Angela reminded audiences of the liminal space that Bev occupies. She wants to get away from what she knows, but she's unequivocally drawn to it.
Described as ‘tragicomic,’ we can all recognise people we grew up with, or people we know now, in Abigail’s Party. Maybe we are Bev swanning around the living room listening to Elvis, maybe we are Sue, uncomfortable and desperate to leave. Maybe we’re Tony, assured in our place in the social pecking order (and that assurance elicits laughter) or Angela, spitting out stories deemed socially ‘unacceptable’ to fill the silence. Maybe we’re Lawrence, trying to scramble our way to the top whilst desperately teetering on the edge. Maybe we’re no one. But Abigail’s Party is a definite entertaining, satirical delight, that I for one am glad it has been revived.
Abigail’s Party is at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester from now until the 24th May, extended due to popular demand. Be part of the festivities here.
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