Beverly and husband Laurence are throwing a party for their newlywed neighbours, Tony and Angela. Joining them is highly strung Susan whose been banished from the party of her teenage daughter Abigail. Welcome to 1970’s suburbia and its heady mix of free-flowing cocktails, classic disco and cheese and pineapple sticks. As tensions rise and tempers flare the sheen of respectability is torn away by the warring couples with hilarious and potentially disastrous consequences. Read more …
Mike Leigh’s iconic Abigail’s Party is one of Britain’s most celebrated comedies; beloved by audiences, it thrills and delights in equal measure. It’s not to be missed.
Mike Leigh's examination of social etiquette and suburban life is sharp and clever and Abigail's Party remains wickedly funny, fresh and relevant.
Dating from a time where you were considered old before you were thirty, Leigh’s play is a fascinating time-capsule of a historical period when social mobility was still possible, but which could so easily be as disastrous as a bottle of chilled Beaujolais.
Abigail’s Party is the perfect example of something so well-written, that it still has the power (in a very different world) to be hugely entertaining, decades on from its creation.
Classic dysfunctional dinner party hits the spot.
Perfectly poised between biting-yet-humane satire and uproarious, anti-nostalgic farce, Esdaile’s production is a fabulously entertaining, thoroughly engaging night out.
The production provides a great deal of fun and surface gloss, but fails to engage emotionally as it might.
Leigh’s study of disintegration is more of a short, sharp shock to the system of human relations, without offering much in the way of redemption along the way.
Deprived of tension and momentum by an overblown lead performance.
King's Theatre, Edinburgh from Tuesday April 16, 2019, until Saturday April 20, 2019. More info: http://www.edtheatres.com/kings
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