Beverly and Laurence are entertaining their new neighbours, Angela and Tony as well as Sue, whose teenage daughter, Abigail, is having a party. Over drinks and small talk, class differences and relationship difficulties emerge.
Alison Steadman is outstanding in this BBC "Play for Today" self-adaptation of Mike Leigh's play as the really quite hateful "Beverley' who gathers a few of her friends around for drinks and canapés only to have the evening slowly degenerate into an alcohol infused angry, bitter observation of snobbery and middle class anachronisms. The tensions rise - accompanied by the increasingly intrusive and irritating racket from the eponymous party being held next door by the daughter of one of the guests. At times this is truly laugh-out-loud and at others agonisingly exasperating but an excellent example of great acting and writing.