Miss Halfpenny has the unenviable task of escaping the memory most of us have of Alison Steadman in this role. She succeeds. This Beverly is a sensual vamp, a Cleopatra of Chigwell. ‘To a film star,’ she says with knowing envy, ‘getting divorced is like going to the lavatory.’

That cracking actress Natalie Casey de-glams herself to play plain plodder Angela. Susannah Harker, once so willowy, is a revelation as posh, matronly hipped Susan, mother of Abigail. Susan is a loser. Miss Harker catches beautifully her air of fatigued failure, forever saying ‘thank yew’ as people pile her with unwanted kindnesses. Joe Absolom, in a madly bad wig, completes the strong cast as Angela’s husband Tony, a man you feel might punch someone to death at any minute.

Verdict: ****
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Thanks to the BBC film version, readily available on DVD, Mike Leigh’s 1977 play has become a much-loved classic, while Alison Steadman’s performance as Beverly, the grotesquely overbearing hostess of a doomed suburban get-together, has passed into legend. But it is also a piece that divides critical opinion. While many find it a hoot, others have complained that it cruelly holds its lower-middle-class characters up to derision for the delectation of an upper-middle-class audience that feels snootily superior in matters of culture and taste. Indeed I took that view myself when the play was last revived in the West End 10 years ago.

This time, however, I was completely won over. That may be, of course, because I have become a nastier person, but I think it is due to the fact that Lindsay Posner’s superb production captures the palpable pain of the characters as well as their absurdity.

The play’s dark ending still achieves a shattering dramatic impact, even if you know it is coming, and this terrific production must surely be bound for the West End, where it will make a fine companion piece to another recently revived Seventies classic, Alan Ayckbourn’s Absent Friends.

Verdict: ****
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Posner's production will delight the fans, while also offering invigoratingly fresh new sidelights on characterisation and on questions such as to what degree this play is inviting the condescending laughter of the social secure on the aspirational lower-middle and working classes. Blessed with the kind of the figure that would let her play Elvira, the ghost in Blithe Spirit, Halfpenny pins down with hilarious precision the infallibly undermining supportiveness of Beverly who bullies her way to democratic majorities and to her draconian notion of female solidarity.

Verdict: ****
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The cast inhabit their roles with utter conviction, bringing pace and life to the dialogue while placing a very personal stamp on the familiar characters. There is a fragility to Jill Halfpenny that brings a new dimension to Beverly. She is no less the monster, bullying her guests into having a good time while belittling her husband but Halfpenny offers occasional flashes of despair, albeit momentary and usually allayed with yet another gin and tonic.

If Beverly is something of a lost soul in the prime of her life, then Andy Nyman’s Laurence is a man teetering on the edge. At turns aggressive and condescending, Nyman captures the middle-aged, lower middle-class angst to perfection, particularly as he attempts to find common ground with Susannah Harker’s desperately polite Susan. Joe Absolom brings a lighter side to the surly Tony, making a much more convincing target for Beverly’s attention while Natalie Casey is sublime as the gauche, but ultimately practical Angela.
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