Women Laughing

The flyers for Women Laughing claim that it has "echoes of Abigail's Party". It would be fairer to say that the new production is a gentle reworking of Mike Leigh's suburban black comedy. It wears Leigh's influence heavily, but mostly manages to be inventive enough to work in its own right. With less emphasis on sex and more on general human unpleasantness, the cast create an often absorbing study of masculinity under siege, with complex male characters whose aggression is their weakness. However, some stilted acting means that the result doesn't always convince. A solid production, but hardly ground-breaking.