Beautiful Lips - Abigail's Party - Alison Steadman

by BFA Prints

Title

Beautiful Lips - Abigail's Party - Alison Steadman

Artist

BFA Prints

Medium

Digital Art - Photography, Digital, Mixed Media, Digital Effects And Painting

Description

Beautiful Lips: Portrait of Beverly from Mike Leigh's iconic play Abigail's Party. Pop Art Stylised portrait with a nod to the Chinese Lady Painting by Dimitri Tretchikoff. The wallpaper behind Beverly is inspired by the actual 70's wallpaper on the set of the BBC play.

[Beverly is giving fashion advice to Angela]

Beverly: Now I can see what you've done, Ange - you've just sat down and put on your lipstick. Next time, will you try this for me? Just sit down, relax, and say to yourself "I have very beautiful lips" and I tell you, Ange, you're gonna see the difference! All right?!


Abigail's Party is a play for stage and television devised and directed in 1977 by Mike Leigh. It is a suburban situation comedy of manners, and a satire on the aspirations and tastes of the new middle class that emerged in Britain in the 1970s. The play developed in lengthy improvisations during which Mike Leigh explored the characters with the actors, but did not always reveal the incidents that would occur during the play. The production opened in April 1977 at the Hampstead Theatre, and returned after its initial run in the summer of 1977, 104 performances in all. A recording was arranged at the BBC as a Play for Today, produced by Margaret Matheson for BBC Scotland and transmitted in November 1977

Plot: The terrain is 'the London side of Essex', 'theoretical Romford' according to Leigh. Beverly Moss invites her new neighbours, Angela and Tony, who moved into the road just two weeks ago, over for drinks. She has also invited her neighbour Susan (Sue), divorced for three years, whose fifteen-year-old daughter Abigail is holding a party at home. Beverly's husband Laurence comes home late from work, just before the guests arrive. The gathering starts off in a stiff, insensitive, British middle class way as the virtual strangers tentatively gather, until Beverly and Laurence start sniping at each other. As Beverly serves more drinks and the alcohol takes effect, Beverly flirts more and more overtly with Tony, as Laurence sits impotently by. After a tirade about art, Laurence suffers a fatal heart attack. Within this simple framework, all of the obsessions, prejudices, fears and petty competitiveness of the protagonists are ruthlessly exposed.


Digital Painting of Alison Steadman as Beverly from Abigail's Party.

Uploaded

August 20th, 2016

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