Oh, that list from F'babe! The very first on the list is Abigail's Party. A play by Mike Leigh (I had forgotten that - thought it was Alan Ayckbourn). Once seen never forgotten, and yet it's comic (some might say tragi-comic). Abigail, whom you never see, is the daughter of one of the couples in the play and is giving a party in the next door apartment while the parents all get together, I guess waiting to take their teenage offspring home afterwards. The vitriol and social/sexual ruthlessness of their conversation and behaviour surpasses Updike at his worst! Theatre of mental cruelty. If you haven't seen it and it comes your way, don't miss it. I think the characters are recognisable right across the 'developed' world. I reckon ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans would have known them.
Channel Four's reviewer said: "Abigail's Party still ranks as the most painful hundred minutes in British comedy-drama."
