Theatre review: Abigail's Party

Mike Leigh's name might always be brought up in relation to a kind of bleak, gritty realism, but it's his 1977 black comedy Abigail's Party that remains his most famous, beloved, and frequently-revived play. Of course we never see Abigail or her party - that's going on a few doors down in a street in suburban Essex. Instead we're at what's meant to be a much more sophisticated, adult soirée at the home of Beverley (Tamzin Outhwaite) and Laurence (Kevin Bishop,) who've asked round new neighbours Angela (Lauren Patel) and Tony (Omar Malik) to welcome them to the neighbourhood. An awkward fifth wheel in the group is Abigail's mother Sue (Pandora Colin,) who's been invited along so she can escape the teenage chaos going on in her own house. But with Beverley in charge things don't stay much calmer here for long.

Theatre review: Entertaining Mr Sloane

Nadia Fall moves from Stratford to Southwark, and launches her time at the Young Vic with Entertaining Mr Sloane, Joe Orton's first full-length play that feels like Pinter played as farce. It's a comparison that Peter McKintosh's design particularly calls to mind: The in-the-round set is surrounded by junk, not just around the stage but hanging perilously over it, reminding us that this twisted version of a 1960s suburban house stands alone in the middle of a scrapheap. Kath (Tamzin Outhwaite) brings back Mr Sloane (Jordan Stephens,) a young man she met in a library and offered to let out the spare room to. When she was very young Kath had a husband and a baby son, and lost both of them; she's decided that the new lodger is going to be a replacement figure for both, and the fact that she tries to seduce him while asking that he call her "mama" isn't the only creepy thing that'll happen while he's there.

Theatre review: How The Other Half Loves

It's a phenomenon that's already certain to turn up in my theatrical memes of the year, and one nobody will be looking back on fondly: Theatres' insistence on programming long shows without an early start time to compensate for it. Adding its name to the National, Almeida and, worst offender, the Old Vic, the Theatre Royal Haymarket joins in with what seems almost spiteful scheduling: At just over two and a half hours, How The Other Half Loves is just longer-than-average rather than an epic, but an inexplicable 7:45pm start time makes sure nobody gets home before 11pm - if they're lucky. That unwelcome slice of 2016 aside, it's like any other year: If it's spring there must be an Alan Ayckbourn revival somewhere, and Memorable Actor Matthew Cottle must be in it. Vanessa loves Ayckbourn so she always gets an early birthday present she'll like, even if my own feelings about his work are more variable.

Theatre review: Breeders

Opening a new season for young producers at the St James Theatre is Ben Ockrent's new play Breeders, an appealing sitcom with a strong comedy cast. Self-help book writer Andrea (Tamzin Outhwaite) and family lawyer Caroline (Angela Griffin) are a well-off lesbian couple who've recently got married and bought a large fixer-upper house together, but with their biological clocks ticking they're starting to wish for a family to fill it with. Andrea's dream is that they can have what a straight couple does, a baby that shares both parents' DNA, but the only way to do that is for her brother Jimmy (Nicholas Burns) to be the sperm donor for Caro's pregnancy. He says yes, but when they can't agree over what his legal rights to the child will be the plan changes: He and his girlfriend Sharon (Jemima Rooper) will move in with the couple and they'll all raise the child together.

Theatre review: Raving

Actor Simon Paisley Day turns playwright with a familiar comic setup: Three couples go on what is meant to be a relaxing weekend together, but end up in one catastrophe after another, their friendships, and sometimes their relationships, tested. Ross (Robert Webb) is a PR man whose orange wife Rosy (Sarah Hadland) takes him at his word that he's blameless on the various occasions she's caught him with a half-naked au pair. They've rented a Welsh cottage and invited their friends Briony (Tamzin Outhwaite) and Keith (Barnaby Kay) to spend the weekend with them, in the hope that it'll help Briony, a fretful mother, relax. But her chances of calming down aren't helped when she realises that the braying Serena (Issy van Randwyck) and Charles (Nicholas Rowe) have also been invited, and when the latter couple's sexually-forward teenage niece crashes the party as well, the results range from awkward revelations to slapstick violence in Raving.