Chat with the star of Abigail's Party which is coming to Blackpool soon

Celebrity reporter Aimee Seddon chats to actress Laura Rogers who plays Beverly Moss in Abigail's Party ahead of its arrival in Blackpool.

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Literary Reporter Amy Seddon and the iconic play, Abigail's Party, is on at the

00:07Blackpool Grand Theatre between Tuesday, October 22nd and Saturday, October 26th. I had the

00:13pleasure to chat to actress Laura Rogers, who plays the lead, Beverly Moss, to find

00:18out what she had to say next.

00:20I'm chatting to you because you're coming to Blackpool with Abigail's Party, so people

00:26who have no idea what that play is, could you please describe it in your own words?

00:31Yes, so it was written in, well, I say written, it was actually improvised originally in the

00:391970s, late 1970s, and a group of actors under the direction of Mike Lee put it on at Hampstead

00:50Theatre, and it was Alison Stedman who played Beverly originally, and then they, and it

00:58was totally improvised. It's basically your sort of worst party that you could ever possibly

01:06imagine. The mixture of guests are quite eclectic and in usual circumstances probably wouldn't

01:17really get on, and they're all trying really hard to get on, and it just goes pretty wrong

01:23from the beginning. So it's a comedy, it's really good fun. It's a dark comedy, so there

01:32are quite dark elements in the storytelling, but a lot of laughs as well. So Abigail never

01:42features in our production, or in any of the productions. Abigail is the daughter of one of

01:47the guests, and she's having a party a couple of hours away, and so in fact, yes, you never see

01:55Abigail, you just hear about her. How are you feeling about bringing Abigail's Party up to

02:00Blackpool? Oh, we're so excited. I've never been to Blackpool, I really can't wait to get there.

02:07I hear the theatre is beautiful, and I'm looking forward to going to the Pleasure Beach,

02:14and seeing all the sights, and of course it's where Strictly comes every year. I don't think

02:20we're on at the same time as Strictly, but also the illuminations. I've got loads of good

02:27tips of where I need to go and what I need to do, so we're hoping we get all the lovely audiences

02:32to come and see it. If you want a really fun night out, you should just definitely, definitely

02:37come along. So though you've not performed in Blackpool before, do you have an expectation

02:41of what the audiences are like? Yeah, well I hope they're going to be really good fun. I mean,

02:46I feel like the North, we've already done it in Newcastle, and the Northerners have a brilliant

02:53sense of humour, so we got such a warm reception from them, and so I'm just really excited to see

03:04how they receive it, really. People who haven't got tickets yet for Abigail Party, why should they?

03:12Well, I mean, for a start, it's not a very long show. I mean, I know that some people get put

03:19off if they think that a play is like three hours long. No, it's not. It's under two hours,

03:25and it's really good fun. You'll have a great laugh. It doesn't matter whether you're a teenager

03:32or whether you're, you know, what, it reaches every generation because I think people will be

03:36able to notice and recognise at least one of these characters that they see on stage, but it's just

03:43a sort of, a very entertaining night out at the theatre that doesn't require you. You can just

03:50sort of leave anything that you've experienced in the day behind and just go and be entertained

03:57for two hours.