After a difficult period for the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, the 2025 Season is important for the theatre to regain its reputation as one of the great performing venues outside London. Selina Cartmell has chosen Abigail’s party as a centre-piece for the season, this could be seen as a safe choice and a potential crowd pleaser. Abigail’s party has been performed previously in Manchester as a touring production but never at the Royal Exchange. Does the unique theatre-in-the-round staging at the Royal Exchange provide a more intimate audience experience for a classic suburban comedy?
Written by Mike Leigh, a local talent from the ‘70s
Mike Leigh, although born in Welwyn Garden City in 1943, was brought up in Salford in the 1940s and 50s before moving to RADA in London, after which he began his directing career in Birmingham and London before returning briefly to Manchester and directing some low key productions with the Youth Theatre. In the 1970s, after returning to London, he developed his reputation for developing productions with a bare bones script and a skeleton plot; relying on interactions between the actors and improvisation during rehearsal to develop the performance, with the performers contributing key creative elements.
Abigail’s Party (1977) dates from this period, originally staged in the Hampstead theatre with Alison Steadman in the lead role of Beverley, its reputation spread quickly and it was a sellout success. An abridged version was filmed by the BBC as a Play for Today, and this has been screened many times and is readily available on streaming services.
Alcohol, cigarettes and cheese and pineapple on sticks
Abigail’s party is a drama set in a suburban drinks party where the lubrication of alcohol releases the underlying tensions of relationships between couples. The conceit of course is that the party in the play is not Abigail’s but is hosted by Beverley. Abigail’s party is in the same street and is being held by Susan’s daughter. Susan is at Beverley’s party and Abigail’s party is a plot device allowing members of the cast to be despatched off stage to report on it.
The play is set in a single room in the house of Beverley and Laurence Moss where new arrivals in the street, Tony and Angela Cooper have been invited for welcome drinks along with another neighbour Susan Lawson. The set is intentionally claustrophobic and is well presented using the circular stage, with the audience (at least at stage level) getting a sense of intimacy.
The play was written in the 1970s and is staged here as such, with great period detail from the designer Peter Butler, such as Wharfdale Loudspeakers in the living room hi-fi, bathroom fittings of the appropriate colour, cheddar cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks proffered as nibbles, ever present. There is almost continuous smoking of cigarettes and cigars by the cast throughout the performance and copious drinking of gin and tonics and Bacardi and coke.
Originally set in Essex, now Abigail’s Party is set in the North West
The setting has been transposed geographically from its original Essex to somewhere up and coming in the North West, maybe a housing estate in Wilmslow. Tony Cooper, who trialled, ultimately unsuccessfully, as a footballer is now portrayed as having been let go by Preston North End and not Crystal Palace as in the original. Finally, in keeping with the original concept, there is a play list of easy listening 1970’s pop to be argued over by the cast.
Beverley Moss is played by Kym Marsh, who may be better known to audiences for her long serving role in Coronation Street. Beverley is the domineering but not dominant character in the play. She is determined that all shall have a good time, plying the guests with drink, even if they don’t want them, getting people to smoke even if they are giving up and appearing to dominate her mildly ineffectual husband, Laurence. Laurence is played by Graeme Hawley, a Royal Exchange regular, and the dynamic between the two is a key element of the performance. This interaction is a key to the success of the performance with an excellent slow burn building up to the crescendo at the conclusion of the performance.
Two couples both having a relationship crisis
Yasmin Taheri portrays Angela Cooper, or Ange as Beverley calls her and she develops the character as the play progresses. Her husband, Tony – Kyle Rowe – plays the taciturn part with a combination of an uninterested comedic straight man and a down to earth impatience at what is going on. Perhaps the true state of their relationship is hinted at by Angela when she says Tony works in computing but only as an operator. The two couples start off in opposition with the Mosses slighting the Coopers directly and through their actions and comments. Susan – Tupele Dorgu – plays her part well, which although being the mother of Abigail, is mostly a character around which the two couples enact their relationship crises. However, she is also the longest standing resident from the largest house that predates the houses of both couples and perhaps it is her status that Mosses and Coopers aspire to.
Seventies characters and a good tragi-comedy balance
The play is clearly set in the 1970s with hints of characters showing racism, misogyny, social class snobbery, and possibly a hint of domestic violence, as well as the all-present smoking mentioned earlier. The transition to Manchester suburbia works and maybe gives it a greater at-home feel. The performance was slick and very well received by the audience. This was a preview performance and was delivered professionally with the correct tragi-comedic balance. Abigail’s Party is staged well and the theatre-in-the-round gives an intimate perspective of the developing cozy catastrophe, at least as seen by your critic sitting in the front-row banquette seats, whether you will get the same intimacy from the second or upper circle, I am not so sure. Hopefully, this is a successful relaunch of the theatre after its troubled 2024.
Abigail’s Party at the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre – until Saturday 24th May 2025. Play by Mike Leigh
