Bearing in mind that Mike Leigh (with his collaborators’ help) is one of Britain’s very best wordsmiths, it is a wordless passage of this play that makes the greatest impact. After an evening of pretentious posturing, forced chit-chat and supressed bickering, the words die away. Our host Laurence is prostate on the carpet  with guest Angie trying her best to re-start his heart. The only beat we can hear is the muffled Led Zeppelin bassline from Abigail’s party over the road. An audience that has spent the entire evening laughing happily at the sad antics of the play’s five characters is now desperately willing Laurence, the loser, to live. It’s stilling stuff.

Abigail’s Party surfaced at the Hampstead Theatre in 1977 and ever since audiences have enjoyed watching a soiree they would hate to be at.

15-year-old Abigail isn’t there of course. Her thudding party is across the road. So, her Mum, Sue (Jo Castleton) has hopped over to the neighbours to escape. But she turns out to be the only normal one there. Beverley and Laurence are entertaining Angie and Tony to drinks and pineapple chunks on cocktail sticks and it all seems to be going okay. The talk is all about houses, divorce and Peter Seller’s love life - that's untill the Bacardi gets to the girls and the veneer shatters.

Rebecca Birch is brilliant as Beverley; reinventing the role wonderfully as a determinedly manipulative would-be sex-kitten with an awful sneering laugh. It’s a monstrous part in both senses of the word. She appears in a floaty salmon chiffon hostess dress that tones in with her leather-look three-piece suite. We see her lay out the party food. Never before have nibbles been served so erotically.

Later as a drink fuelled lustful manhunter, she blatantly gyrates in a horribly provocative manner with her guest Tony (George Readshaw), a monosyllabic, failed Crystal Palace footballer, whilst his worse-for-wear wife is intent on seeing how many Cheesy Hoops she can fit on her fingers. It’s not easy acting drunk but Alice De-Warrenne is utterly convincing as she delivers Leigh’s thoughtlessly probing questions, so unwittingly inappropriate and so cringe-worthy; leaving the audience in hysterics, despite ourselves.

When Tom Richardson’s Laurence long-suffering turns the talk to art (about which they know precious little), the simmering frustrations boil over, and the silent scene ensues.

The script that was devised all those years ago is still excruciatingly funny. It is pickled with wicked cultural put downs and howling displays of ignorance. My absolute favourite has always been Beverley’s response to Sue’s gift of a bottle. The 70s suburban detail is superb. Houses cost 21 thousand, James Galway is an up-and-coming flautist and Liz Taylor is on her umpteenth husband. The set and costumes are perfect. The attitudes are painfully unsophisticated and the gags seem funnier in retrospect that they did then.

Abigail's Party is very much a play of its time. We are watching a period piece and of course none of us would act as appallingly as that these days. Would we?   

Four stars

Reviewed by Chris Eldon Lee at New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire. Abigail's Party continues to show at the venue until Saturday 15 April.