Abigail's Party is the Christmas production from the Southwick Players

It's a play Gary Cook has wanted to direct for a long time – not least because it is a play close to home, or at least to his own memories of home growing up in the 1970s. Not that he is saying by any means that his parents were monsters but there are certain similarities to the world that a production of Abigail’s Party has to create.

“The play has not been available for amateur productions for a while but it became available about this time last year or a little bit before, and I saw that and I jumped at it. It's a play that I felt would sell well and it's something that would also be good as a Christmas show but also for personal reasons, from a personal point of view, I wanted to do it. I remember seeing the original Play For Today in 1977. I thoroughly enjoyed it then, and I've come to realise during the intervening years that it is about me! I grew up in Kent and my parents had a very similar style to the decorations and décor and so on. I hate the term nouveau riche but there is a little bit of that in what my childhood was. I was Abigail in that it was me having the parties and wanting to get away from the suburban setting just like Abigail is in the play”.”

Beverley Moss invites her new neighbours, Angela and Tony, who moved into the road just two weeks ago, over for drinks. She has also invited her neighbour Susan, divorced for three years, whose fifteen-year-old daughter Abigail is holding a party at her home.

Beverley’s husband Laurence comes home late from work, just before the guests arrive. The gathering starts off in a stiff fashion as the virtual strangers tentatively gather until Beverley and Laurence start sniping at each other. As Beverley serves more drinks, and the alcohol takes effect, Beverley flirts more and more with Tony as Laurence sits impotently by.

After a tirade when Beverley insists on showing off her kitsch artwork, the evening descends into a maelstrom of hilarity and heartbreak…

“A lot of it does ring true when I think about it,” Gary says. “Not to say that my parents were hideous because they absolutely weren’t but there are so many similarities. I've seen several productions on stage and I always think it is really amusing.”

Inevitably, it's something that you have to do in that era: “It won't work in any other era. It was a time of change. It was the year of the Silver Jubilee and the start of punk rock and it was also the start of a shift in relationships between the generations.

“I think everyone to some extent is a monster in the play. They all have their nastinesses that we see glimpses of but one of the beautiful things is that you just get the glimpses. But they've all got stories behind them, back stories and I think because of that you do feel a lot of sympathy for the characters. They are all trapped in one way or another. Susan is the most normal one on the surface but she has also got a lot of regrets. She has also got a lot of baggage of her own.

“But, yes, they are monsters. Beverley always gets seen as the worst but the fact is she is trapped in a marriage which she doesn't like in the least. It is Beverley who's trapped the most with her material goods and with her showing off.

“I've got a fantastic cast. They are working really hard and in honour of Mike Leigh (who created it) we have done quite a lot of collaboration on the back stories, chatting about things that won't show up in the actual show but just getting the story behind the characters.”

Tickets on https://southwickplayers.org.uk/productions/abigails-party/

The cast is Ryan Etherington playing Tony; Ellie Mason playing Angela; Victoria Storm-Collins playing Beverly; James Witt playing Laurence; and Katherine James playing Susan.