THEATRE JOHN NATHAN

ABIGAIL’S PARTY

Menier Chocolate Factory, London SE1

EVERYONE watching Lindsay Posner’s powerful revival of Mike Leigh’s 1977 play will be shocked by the sheer savagery with which two marriages implode during a suburban drinks party.

The similarities between Abigail’s Party and Alan Ayckbourn’s slightly older Absent Friends, currently in the West End, is remarkable. Each play features two-and-a-half couples; both unfold over real time, revealing the mutual contempt beneath the marriages’ carapace of civility.

All productions of Abigail’s Party are judged by the frustrated and flirtatious Beverly, the role that made Alison Steadman famous and is here played by Jill Halfpenny, who can turn vulgarity into a turn-on. The play may be a period piece, but newcomers will find that it is has as much content as it does ’70s style. ( Tel: 020 7378 1713)

MOON ON A RAINBOW SHAWL

Cottesloe, National Theatre, London SE1

THE Trinidad-born Errol John wrote his 1957 play in response to a playwriting competition set up by the Observer critic Kenneth Tynan. It won. John must have been burning to write the play anyway. Set in post-war Port of Spain, in a yard surrounded by shacks, its hero is bus driver Ephraim whose ambition is to leave his deadend life by taking a ship to Liverpool.

It is a work that stands tall alongside other classic 20th-century family dramas in which poverty’s first victim is dignity. The family in Moon is a community, and watching over them all is Sophia, who keeps body and soul together in the face of male fecklessness. In that role a passionate and compassionate Martina Laird gives Michael Buffong’s sure-footed production one of the finest performances you will see this year. ( Tel: 020 7452 3000)