Abigail's Party

This was the television play that put Alison Steadman and director Mike Leigh on the map and in the consciousness of the British public. It proved to be a landmark in British drama due to the improvised nature of the piece. Leigh and Steadman were also married to each other from 1973 to 2001 and have both consistently produced acclaimed bodies of work throughout their careers in the 44 years since.

Abigail's Party is a tour de force for Steadman who plays Beverly, a nightmare dinner party host, who invites friends over for a drink while one of the guests' teenage daughters are having a party. Relationships get tested and things begin to unravel as the evening wears on in this acutely observed exercise in social manners.

From this you can see Leigh is an actor's director as he puts them and their raw emotions center stage, encouraging each actor to create their own character and manages to get nuances out of them that a confined script probably wouldn't have. The end result is a compelling, amusing and toe curling comedy drama that has stood the test of time, despite being firmly rooted in style to the 1970's when it was made.

Beverly thinks she is sophisticated and aspires to better things but in the process she shows no empathy for her stressed husband or sympathy for her neurotic neighbour, for her it's all about the facade and being something she is not.

It certainly left a big impression on the British public at the time as millions tuned in by default due to a strike on ITV so viewers had limited choice to what they could watch but what they found was a guilty pleasure that has been enjoyed by audiences ever since and remains in the BFI Top 20 TV programmes of all time.

Abigail's party is a tremendous piece of drama that was originally developed through a process of improvisation. It is hilariously funny but at the same time deeply moving and the tension created on stage is amongst the most painful I have ever witnessed. Mike Leigh, as a director, clearly has an amazing ability to achieve fantastic performances from his actors. The play, about an awkward drinks gathering, hosted by the atrocious Beverley (Alison Steadman), explores the intricacies of the social order in Britain and the pretentious aspirations of the lower middle class. With a heavy dose of Demis Rusoss, quite a few Gin an' Tonics, a cheesy pineapple stick and a dramatic climax - Abigail's Party is a much-watch. It may be a little dated but it still has a cult following and I hear that people today hold Abigail's Party parties:- So it must be good!

Mike Leigh's jet black comedy of manners shouldn't be reviewed as a film; strictly speaking, it's a video document of his own stage play, performed as theater. The play itself is an often brilliant one-act satire, charting the total disintegration of an intimate cocktail party controlled by an aggressively bourgeois hostess (Alison Steadman) and her ineffective husband. The escalating tensions between each guest (one of them exiled from her daughter Abigail's punk rock party, heard but never seen offstage) suggest a clever parody of 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?', blending acute social embarrassment with moments of absurd but often hilarious tragedy. Middle class envy and pretensions have rarely been savaged with such glee, and on a purely technical level it offers a fine example of how to film a play as a play, with the camera intruding only far enough onto the stage to capture every nuance of the performances.

I reckon that this is the sort of movie that gets film students all excited. There are so many levels to this flick that you could probably go on for days pulling apart and examining the different characters, relationships and commentaries. But I recommend you watch this film purely for entertainment purposes - it's great. The actors are believable, the story is simplistic (yet so effective) and the period touches are great - because this is essentialy a period drama (the period being very firmly in the 1970s). For a film to have such little plot yet remain so compelling is testament to each and every element that makes up this movie. Watch it.

Mike Leigh's teleplay Abigail's Party is a character driven portrait of life in the suburbs in 70's Britain. It's about a drinks party hosted by a couple called Beverley and Laurence, attended by guests Ange and Tony, who have newly moved into the street, and Susan, a neighbour whose teenage daughter Abigail is having her own party at her house that same evening.

This is a party from hell. Beverly and Laurence are two of the most appalling hosts imaginable. While she is overbearing and ignorant, he is highly-strung and pretentious. They are two sides of the same coin though; where she likes throwaway pop music he likes classical, where she is fond of tacky erotic art he prefers fine art. At least Beverly's taste seems genuine, Laurence appears to choose things that makes him feel superior but it all seems purely for show, like his collected works of Shakespeare on which he enthuses about the quality of the jacket material, the contents he describes hilariously as unreadable. As the night progresses this pair of idiots battle amongst themselves in front of their guests creating umpteen squirm-inducing moments. The guests themselves are not much better. Ange is simple-minded and irritating, her husband Tony, taciturn and aggressive, while the third guest, the divorcée Susan, is stiff and stand-offish. Together they have the sort of chemistry that ordinarily in life comes with a toxic warning label.

Class is at the heart of much of the drama. Beverly and Laurence are a middle class suburban couple; Ange and Tony represent the lower-middle class, while Susan inhabits the upper-middle. Part of Beverley's reasoning behind the party is to induct Ange and Tony into her social strata. The latter couple are new to the street and seem to be from a lower income bracket; this allows Beverley to patronizingly take Ange under her wing. Susan, on the other hand, does not need to work as she is supported by her architect ex-husband and while she inhabits a level that Beverly aspires to, she clearly is not a happy woman. She still appears to be traumatized by her divorce and she seems to be very self-conscious in company. Although her discomfort in this social gathering does provide the audience with an identification figure of sorts, as most people would feel thoroughly uncomfortable in this car crash of a get-together.

Alison Steadman is tremendous as Beverly. This extremely well-crafted comic character is the dark soul of Abigail's Party. She is alternately fawning and unpleasant, but always selfish. She bullies her guests into doing exactly what she wants at all times, from insisting that everyone listen to the tacky music of Demis Roussos to forcing Ange and Tony to take cigarettes despite the fact they both are in the process of giving up. She forcefully prevents Susan from leaving to check on her daughter despite fuelling the flames of her paranoia by tactlessly implying that the kids would be running riot next door. Alison Steadman nails this character in a way that is firmly believable, she never descends into caricature. The rest of the cast are generally impressive too, the other standout being Janine Duvitski's portrayal of Ange. Through her various bits of inane dialogue, and her husband's gruff responses, she allows the audience to read between the lines and work out that her marriage is a terrible one but like Beverly she is no one-dimensional caricature, as by the end of the film she is the only character who really comes to the fore and ends the piece with any credit. Well-written dramas often confound expectations in this way.

One of the things I love about Abigail's Party is that it's a real period piece. The fashions, décor and music all scream 1977. But the drama is timeless, as the people are believable and the comic moments still subtly effective. It's the skillful mix of comedy with believable drama that is ultimately the key to its enduring success. The film ends in a very dark tone indeed, with the seemingly strong characters becoming weak and vice-versa. This tragicomedy doesn't play by conventional expectations and perhaps this is partly why it's so good.