Review: Irony, laughs .. and a very dramatic end

Abigail's Party ****
Brunton Theatre

LAST night's performance of Abigail's Party came to a more than usually dramatic climax when, just minutes from the end, Steve Dineen, playing Laurence, collapsed on stage.

Fortunately Dineen was well enough to walk to an ambulance. Ironically, his collapse came at that moment in his performance when Laurence was having a heart attack.

The first the audience knew that something was really wrong was when actress Alice Selwyn stepped out of the role of Laurence's screeching wife, Beverley, and asked in a calm voice if there was a doctor in the house.

Despite last night's untoward ending, this touring production of Mike Leigh's classic comedy about class and snobbery in late 1970s suburban England had been packed with laughs and great observational performances while piling one layer of knowing irony on the last.

Selwyn has stepped very comfortably into the role made famous in the original production by Alison Steadman. She is the perfectly tortuous wife, aspiring to a middle-class status of which she has absolutely no understanding, apart from the goods which come along with it.

Beverley and Laurence have asked new neighbours, Angela and Tony, round for drinks. Also asked is Sue, a divorced mother of two, whose daughter, 15 year-old proto-punk Abigail, is having a party at home.

The whole thing is almost hideous to watch. The couples, and Sue, fall into awkward silences and hoot inane cliches at each other. Bev bosses her guests around, foisting G&T after G&T on them, bombarding them with her taste in music and eventually dancing, lecherously entwined around Tony's leg.

Hideous and hilarious, because it is a near perfectly observed piece of social satire. These people were real, their brown leather sofas and silver plate candelabras really existed, as did their conversation and ideas about what was important. The skill of Mike Leigh's script is not just its humour, but that it reflects what happened to a swathe of people in the 1970s.

Those who fell for the values and aspirations of Thatcherism are prattling on while next door the kids are readying for the poll tax riots.

If the production could make bit more of Laurence and Tony's visits to Abigail's party, ostensibly on Sue's behalf to check-up on Abigail, it scores top marks on every other aspect.

The performances are particularly noteable. Amy Starling is excruciatingly servile as Angela, while Anna Kirke provides a brilliant contrast as Sue, constantly wincing at the faux-pas of her neighbours, but far too polite to say anything against them.

Against them, the men put in a pair of understated performances. Jamie Matthewman as the taciturn Tony and Dineen as the put upon Laurence bottling it all in.

• Run ends tonight