"He said to me, he'd like to sellotape my mouth"

According to a recent interview with Jill Halfpenny in The Telegraph:

Mike Leigh came in for the cast read-through. “On a scale of one to 10 of intimidation it was 11 – it was big time,” she says, laughing. “The only way the situation could have been more intimidating would be if Alison Steadman had been sat next to him. At the end he said that as a rule he doesn’t like read-throughs because that’s not how he works, but that he enjoyed it. He took Lindsay aside and said: 'You’ve cast that well.’ We all breathed a sigh of relief.”

And of course the playwright was right, as we found out when our gang - eleven of us - turned out to see the new revival of Abigail's Party by Lindsay Posner at the Menier Chocolate Factory last night. They were indeed an excellent cast - Miss Halfpenny as the "she-ogre" Beverly, ably supported by Joe Absolom (Tony), Natalie Casey (Angela), Susannah Harker (Sue) and Andy Nyman (Laurence).

We initially had our reservations whether to go and see it at all. The classic original featuring Alison Steadman and Janine Duvitski is so engraved upon our collective consciousness, it would be hard to equal. However this production was superb in itself, perfectly recapturing the cringeworthy pretensions of 70s middle-class suburbia - and all the now-immortal and much-repeated lines - without resorting to either impersonation or pastiche.

We laughed, we gasped, and we half-secretly recited familiar quotes along with the actors. It was utterly captivating, superbly played - and we all loved it!

Abigail's Party is only on at the Menier Chocolate Factory until 21st April, so book now!

And here, of course, are some of the choicer quotable quotes:

• Laurence: [on Shakespeare] "Our nation's culture. Not something you can actually read, of course."
• Beverly: "Just because a picture happens to be erotic, does not make it pornographic."
• Angela: "Is it real silver?"
  Beverly: "Silver plate, yes."
• Beverly: "Now I can see what you've done, Ange - you've just sat down and put on your lipstick. Next time, will you try this for me? Just sit down, relax, and say to yourself "I have very beautiful lips" and I tell you, Ange, you're gonna see the difference! All right?!"
• Angela: "Pilchard curry is a very economical dish."
• Beverly: "The thought of actually having kids makes me heave."
• Beverly: "You're a boring little bugger, Laurence."
• Beverly: "Don't get me wrong - I do love Laurence - he's very good with money. He takes me shopping, I bung it in the wheelie, he writes a cheque and it's done for the week - know what I mean?"
• Angela: "Oh it's funny. We were all getting married about the same time as you were... getting divorced!"
• Angela: "No, he's not violent. Just a bit nasty. Like, the other day, he said to me, he'd like to sellotape my mouth. And that's not very nice, is it?"

Alison Steadman - Abigail's Party: "I have very beautiful lips"

Brilliant!