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Article: THE IoS PROFILE: Mike Leigh - Cruel chronicler of suburbia's nasty secrets and lies Snob or satirist? Wit or depressive? Team player or puppet-master? As his best-known work, `Abigail's Party', is revived, the playwright's inner contradictions are as evident as ever
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- July 21, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2002 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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It is natural that anyone with so sharp an ear for English chatter
should himself be talked about. Still, the Hampstead Theatre revival
of Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party, 25 years after its premiere there,
is filled with echoes and querulous questions - so many of them in
the unique, plaintive voice of Leigh's wife at that time, the actress
Alison Steadman. And times have passed. Just as, in 1977, her
character, Beverly, reckoned to put a bottle of Beaujolais in the
fridge, so now that naive practice is observed in distinguished
restaurants. The gaffe has turned suave.
As for Leigh himself, a year short of 60, he may be inclined to
think that he is least honoured at home, if only because his ...
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Article: The "Politics and Poetics' of Embodiment in Mike ...
Journal of Popular Film and Television;
March 22, 2001 ;
700+ words
... ... likely to read about the films of Mike Leigh is that they are political, and ... the small body of critical work on Mike Leigh. I will, nonetheless, concede ... political sloganeering" (11). Mike Leigh problematizes; he does not proselytize ...
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