Kings Theatre Portsmouth – until 12 August 2023
Reviewed by Lucy Hitchcock
2**
Mike Leigh’s creation of Abigail’s Party has hit Portsmouth to try and entice you to join the excitement.
We meet Beverley (Rebecca Birch) a bossy hostess who thinks she has the “mostess” and her suffering husband Laurence (Tom Richardson) who are hosting a party to introduce their friends Angela and Tony (Alice De-Warenne and George Readshaw) to Susan (Jo Castleton) the mother of Abigail who is hosting her first house party. As the party continues, the alcohol flows and the conversation gets more suggestive and flirtation erupts until there is fatality amongst the group. The cast seems to have some chemistry on stage, albeit a bit stunted and awkward at times unintentionally. The humour seemed to be strained and didn’t quite hit as intended for me-there were ripples of laughter through the audience however.
The set was fantastic, transporting you back to the 1970’s-with plenty of patterns, record players and fibre optic lights! Along with the costumes, this was visually pleasing and really made us feel that we were back in time (some of us for the first time entering the 1970’s!!)
This show has plenty of promise and room for brilliant performance but it fell just short of this. The storyline seemed to be almost like an episode of Emmerdale, with not much driving the plot forward except for an excessive influx of gin and tonics! It was very easy watching, but didn’t excite me enough to warrant a second viewing.