Abigail's Party

Beverly and Laurence’s toe-curling soirée shows off their ‘new money’ social aspirations to their neighbours. Among them is Sue, already a bag of nerves as her teenage daughter, Abigail, is holding her own party a few doors away.

Created for both stage and television in 1977, the play has become a modern classic. Alison Steadman’s monstrous Beverly is seared into the memory of everyone who ever saw it, and millions did on the BBC. In a list of the ‘100 Greatest British Television Programmes’ drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, ‘Abigail’s Party’ came 11th. The play was also staged with the same cast at the Hampstead Theatre and has been revived many times since.

The Bench has turned out a gifted cast of comic actors, many of them well know to our audiences. They are under the direction of Alan Ward, whose past successes with the company include ‘Equus’ and ‘Death of a Salesman’.

Abigail's Party is on at The Spring Arts & Heritage Centre, East Street, Havant.

Thursday 18 – Saturday 20 April and Wednesday 24 – Saturday 27 April at 7.30, with a matinee on Saturday 20 April at 2.30.