In 1985, the BBC assembled a stellar cast to film a performance of Alan Ayckbourn's play 'Absurd Person Singular'. The result was a triumph. The play is a black farce, taking place at consecutive Christmans parties in the kitchens of three successive host couples each drawn from a different slice of the English middle clsses: the social climbing Hopcrofts, the desparate Jacksons, and the arrogant Brewster-Wrights, and Ackybourn's writing has never been better: brilliantly funny and brutally precise at the same time. Little details delight and appal in equal measure, for example, the scence where the naive Stanley Hopcroft, a man with absolutely no empathy for his own wife's feelings, is nonetheless shocked by the two other men's casual lechery (although of course he tries to play along). It's not a directly politcal piece, and was written before she became Prime Minister, but it's a superb takedown of the Thatcher-voting classes. The patriarchical nature of society is also directly exposed (indeed, the plot might work less well today, reflecting as it does the prevailing form of inter-sexual relationship). After two acts of high comedy, the final chapter is very dark. In a six-hander, it seems almost unfair to single out cast members, but Nicky Henson's Hopcroft is arguably the key character; Maureen Lipman, Prunella Scales and the (recently deceased) Geoffrey Palmer are particularly hilarious. I last saw this as an early repeat, over 30 years ago; it's a delight to discover it still holds up today.
