Before the Party

Poking fun at social climbing hypocrites is pretty easy. That's not to say there is anything wrong in going for low-hanging fruit, and that's what this play does. Set in 1949, it records the scene before, and in the second act, after, a posh garden party in a mythical county. Daughter has returned from colonial Africa  her husband having apparently died of malaria and she is now, too early by the conventions of the time, courting a new suitor.

Her family are as dire and unlikeable a bunch as is imaginable. Her jealous older sister takes delight in trying to make trouble for her at every turn, her air-head mother is continuously worried about trivia, and her inability to eat rich food, her father ambitious and uncaring, every domestic drama being seen through the prism of how it will affect his chances of getting the Tory candidature in the local constituency. As things unravel it seems that the daughter's husband was not an upstanding man snatched early from the bosom of his family by malaria, but a middle-aged alcoholic who had committed suicide and then ultimately it becomes clear, had actually been murdered by the daughter in a fit of despair at him returning to the demon drink. All this may sound heavy going, but it isn't, because by and large this is a comedy, the awfulness of the family being too dreadful to take seriously.

So really despite themes of post-war rationing, colonialism, pretentiousness, jealousy suicide and murder, its really quite a light piece.  Its real message I think is how far we have come from the morality of a time where everything was about social standing. Any vile actions were ok provided they didn't upset the bishop.