Tag Archives: Howard Harrison

ABIGAIL’S PARTY

★★★★

Theatre Royal Stratford East

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ABIGAIL’S PARTY at the Theatre Royal Stratford East

★★★★

“the golden Outhwaite’s masterclass in subtle bitchery is unforgettable”

Mike Leigh’s 1977 biting social satire about a suburban drinks party which becomes horribly dark is a hugely popular modern classic, as witnessed by the man in the seat next to me reciting the play along with the cast. Apart from Leigh’s brilliant writing, another major reason for the popularity of Abigail’s Party was the iconic performance of Alison Steadman as Beverley, the party’s monstrous hostess, in the original production adapted for the BBC.

However, in Nadia Fall’s production, a mesmerising Tamzin Outhwaite makes Beverley her own. From the moment the curtain rises to Donna Summer’s Love to Love You Baby revealing Outhwaite on top of a glass-topped coffee table, dressed in a glittering, golden yellow kaftan and blue platform heels and strutting her stuff underneath disco lights, it’s clear that this is one hot hostess who is not afraid to use her sexual allure to manipulate.

Beverley is hosting drinks and nibbles for her new neighbours, gauche young nurse Angela (Ashna Rabheru) and her monosyllabic computer operator husband Tony (Omar Malik), plus stoic and sensible divorced Sue (Pandora Colin), whose daughter Abigail is having a teenage party at their home. Lawrence (Kevin Bishop), Beverley’s husband, pops in and out, being more devoted to his estate agent job at Wibley Webb than to his marriage. Given Beverley’s sneering, dismissive attitude towards him, you can’t blame him.

The initial party small-talk is excruciatingly embarrassing but hilarious; one new big laugh in the current production certainly wouldn’t have raised a smile in 1977 – Angela’s comment that they bought their house for £21,000. Beverley, naturally, is very keen to point out that it’s much smaller than her own abode, but this is far from where the sneering stops.

Beverley dishes out cigarettes from an onyx box, and drink after drink from a well-stocked cocktail cabinet, to her guests with almost the same gusto as she dishes out her barbed comments. She tells Angela that she’s wearing the wrong shade of lipstick; comments on Sue’s marital status, and constantly snipes at Lawrence. And as if that alone doesn’t make her soiree embarrassing, she is keen to impose her musical tastes on her guests – Demis Roussos and Elvis Presley.

It’s clear that Beverley has the hots for handsome ex-footballer Tony, and the drunker she gets, the more she pouts and flirts with him. Lawrence is clearly weary of this behaviour, and indeed anything she does, and Kevin Bishop portrays his pent-up rage perfectly, with subtle facial tics and a tension in his body that means he could go off at any moment. Abigail’s Party is certainly a comedy, but one which contains an incredible amount of tension which makes the audience gasp.

Peter McKintosh’s groovy set, with flowery graphic wallpaper, leather sofa and massive console unit containing the cocktail cabinet, record player and a fibre lamp which mesmerises Beverley, perfectly sums up the era’s taste. My one quibble was that the kitchen units were more noughties than Seventies, shiny and white with silver handles; they should have been as uniformly brown as the rest of the set.

The kitchen was the only wrong note in this excellent production, however. The ensemble are terrific, and the golden Outhwaite’s masterclass in subtle bitchery is unforgettable.


ABIGAIL’S PARTY at the Theatre Royal Stratford East

Reviewed on 13th September 2024

by Clair Woodward

Photography by Mark Senior

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

NOW, I SEE | ★★★★ | May 2024
CHEEKY LITTLE BROWN | ★★★½ | April 2024
THE BIG LIFE | ★★★★★ | February 2024
BEAUTIFUL THING | ★★★★★ | September 2023

ABIGAIL’S PARTY

ABIGAIL’S PARTY

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The Grönholm Method – 4 Stars

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Grönholm

The Grönholm Method

Menier Chocolate Factory

Reviewed – 23rd May 2018

★★★★

“The piece twists and turns in a wonderfully layered structure of discovery”

 

Four people are waiting. These four people are interviewees. They have been told to expect a group interview but the ensuing ninety minutes is far more surprising and gruelling than any might’ve expected. Envelopes appear periodically in a drawer delivering them tasks to complete: they must decide which of them is not a real candidate but a member of HR, whether the company ought to hire someone undergoing gender reassignment, whether unstable mental health and extra marital affairs affect a person’s working ability, and so on. Inspired by actual procedures in HR departments, Jordi Galceran’s play, which premiered in Barcelona in 2003, is reset in a New York office by director BT McNicholl.

As the characters desperately try to puzzle their way through task after task, the audience are equally drawn in, as in the dark as the candidates themselves. The piece twists and turns in a wonderfully layered structure of discovery. It is impossible not to be drawn in, but the draw is surface level. This is not a nice world, and the people in it reflect that. Even at their most sympathetic it is hard to truly feel any empathy for them, and every breakdown is suspect in a play that refuses to stop surprising us. The piece is more thriller than drama, and there is little in which to emotionally invest or engage.

The cast of four is consistently strong. Jonathan Cake’s brutal Frank Porter is harsh, calculating and desperate, abhorrent at points, oddly likeable at others, albeit purely for his tenacity. Greg McHugh is softer but just as committed, the Harvard graduate who is revealed to be a trans woman, though the other characters’ universally transphobic responses perhaps show the play’s age for the first time. Laura Pitt-Pulford is Melanie Douglas – “Three men and a woman, as always,” she comments on arrival – determined to the point of ruthlessness, juggling the demands of work and life with a pragmatic coldness. John Gordon Sinclair’s Rick is a much needed contrast to his counterparts, bright and funny, always on hand with traffic-based small talk and tic tacs.

Tim Hatley’s design is beautifully detailed and fantastically well executed. A plush corporate conference room with white leather chairs, wooden panelling across the walls and an excessive amount of glass. The floor to ceiling windows at the back of the stage reveal the New York skyline, gradually darkening as the play goes on (lighting design by Howard Harrison).

BT McNicholl’s production is slick and well executed, an insight into an ugly world where brutality is rewarded and humanity stamped out, supported by four consistently strong performances.

 

Reviewed by Amelia Brown

Photography by Manuel Harlan

 


The Grönholm Method

Menier Chocolate Factory until 7th July

 

 

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