On its 40th anniversary tour, Mike Leigh’s iconic comedy of dreadful aspirational suburbia still resounds with us. We love dysfunctional marriages. We love and laugh at the pretence of Margot in The Good Life or Hyacinth in Keeping Up Appearances. And even when in this play a main character actually dies onstage the audience howls with laughter at the situation.
Bear-Patrol and the Bedford Tavern raised £305.56 for MindOut the LGBTQ Mental Health Service at the Abigail’s Party fundraiser on October 6. Adam, the owner of the Bedford Tavern, playing the role of Beverley to perfection, served cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks, quiche, nuts and olives and following a disaster in the kitchen with the vol au vents, prawn mayonnaise on french bread, as everyone watched the iconic drama on big screens.
Abigail’s Party, a play for stage and television, was devised and directed in 1977 by Mike Leigh. Described as “a suburban situation comedy of manners”, and a “satire on the aspirations and tastes of the new middle class” that emerged in Britain in the 1970s it is perfect for screening in Brighton in 2017!
