WHEN I was about to be married, my future Father-in-Law, with great wisdom, steered me towards buying a house about to be built as part of a 40-unit development. This was around the same time that Mike Leigh wrote this play, and being the first to take up residence I watched newcomers arrive. Thinking back, I can see among those new arrivals and the way in which we intermingled, the germs of the characters Leigh created.

They are (with few exceptions) exaggerated views of my new neighbours, but remembering conversations and reactions, we were in the main young middle class couples quite certain that we would be successful and set the world alight. Leigh’s characters are frightingly accurate descriptions of a generation which was about to make as many mistakes as the previous and future ones.

With I suspect similar thoughts in mind, director Nadia Fall and set and costume designer Peter McKintosh, with Tamzin Outhwaite – on the face of it a monstrous Beverley Moss – and Kevin Bishop showing equally selfish signs as her overworked estate agent husband Lawrence, were all looking for, and found, far more than broad comedy in Mike Leigh’s play. Without loosing sight that the play is set in the 1970s (how could you with such ideal furnishings and set dressing?), Tamzin and Kevin showed the vulnerability in the characters and opened up the argument of what constitutes good art and social behaviour and which iºs correct. Beverley may be crude and coarse, preferring cheap, slightly pornographic prints to Van Gough, and Demis Roussos and Elvis Presley to classical music and literature, but when Lawrence shows himself to be just as intransigent in what he believes is true art, you have to question why one should be more acceptable than the other.

This argument is underlined in splendid style when Beverley, once more demanding attention, produces a wonderfully sexy dance routine when Omar Malik’s handsome newly-wed Tony willingly joins her on the floor. The comedy is further highlighted when Beverley, now in full bossy mode, forces Lawrence to perform a formal fox trot and quick step with the diffident neighbour Sue (Pandora Colin), who has been persuaded to take refuge in the Moss house while her 15-year-old daughter Abigail holds her first party in her own home.

The third guest has been invited so that Beverley, hiding behind a monstrous façade of self confidence, can display how much bigger, better and well equipped the Moss house is compared to theirs, is Tony’s apparently ineffectual nurse bride Angela (Lauren Patel). She, like the others, shows her true colours in the final scene, which, if played well –and this was– is a truly wonderful piece of farcical comedy. Tony proves not to be the strong silent hero type we were led to believe, Sue’s calm facade falls away as she ignoring the chaos going on around her finally contacts Abigail by telephone, and Beverley, realising just how much she needs and loves Lawrence, goes into a perfectly controlled fit of hysterics.

As a playwright Mike Leigh, like many an author as they reach their eighth decade of life, has rather gone out of fashion. Hopefully this fine production will remind producers and actors that there are quite a few other well-written Leigh plays just awaiting revival.

GRP