By arrangement with Samuel French
Abigail's Party is morbidly compelling. Set in suburbia, it is a study of three problematic relationships. Below the scathing satire there is a near-tragic exposé of the struggles of ordinary, incompatible people against the era’s tide of social mobility and class-consciousness.
Abigail's Party has been described as a 'savage satire on England's middle-class'. This bitter-sweet, darkly comic play celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2007. It was originally devised as a play for the Hampstead Theatre and then subsequently broadcast as a Mike Leigh's best-known television work, it is also one of the most celebrated TV plays of the 1970s.