Abigail’s Party (Harold Pinter Theatre, London)Verdict: Tyrannosaurus TamzinStar rating: 4/5 Abigail’s Party is a miracle of survival. Who would have thought that Mike Leigh’s 1977 Essex satire, so rooted in the faux pas of that decade, could still pull a crowd in the West End?The fact that it does is in no small part down to a monstrous, show-stealing performance by Tamzin Outhwaite as housewife Beverly – a character made gloriously infamous 50 years ago by Alison Steadman.Even though Outhwaite is a full 25 years older than Steadman was then, she is a formidably athletic, flesh-eating raptor. Her Beverly is like an Amazonian dominatrix crossed with a drag queen: sporting a gigantic blonde wig, her flowing orange robe wafting over golden platform shoes.Ditching Steadman’s slightly shrill tones, Outhwaite is more crassly, even maliciously insensitive – a self-assured control freak demanding everyone enjoys themselves at her nightmare drinks party in a suburban cul de sac. That Seventies show: Mike Leigh's 1976 comedy still makes us cringe, 50 years onNHS nurse Ange (Lauren Patel), a new arrival on the street, just about obliges, and is eager to follow her host’s unhinged example – even while Beverly drools over Ange’s monosyllabic former Crystal Palace footballer husband Tony (Omar Malik).Only mousey divorcée Sue (Pandora Colin), whose daughter Abigail is throwing a lawless teenage party next door, tries (and fails) to resist this domestic dinosaur by blending into the furniture.Meanwhile, Beverly’s estate agent husband Laurence (Kevin Bishop) has given up – seeking solace in snobbery about art and music, and dismissing his wife’s beloved Demis Roussos as ‘a fat, caterwauling Greek’. Predatory: Tamzin Outhwaite's Beverly closes in on new neighbour Tony (Omar Malik), as his wife Ange (Lauren Patel) watches helplessly Monstrous: Beverly (Outhwaite) presides over the cocktail 'do from hell in Abigail's PartySo what’s (still) to like about a comedy that so often seems to mock its characters for their foolishness?None of them – least of all Beverly – is very likeable, or even very real. And Mike Leigh’s story is merely situational agony, wrapped up with a random death. Even that closing pathos is cringeworthy.And yet amid the once again fashionable G-Plan furniture, beige leather 3-piece suite and shag pile carpet (natch), Nadia Fall’s production taps into a ferocious, proto-feminist defiance led by Outhwaite.Her Beverly is Tyrannosaurus-Regina – to be simultaneously feared and revered.Abigail's Party runs at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London until September 19. Jeeves Takes Charge (Charing Cross Theatre, LondonVerdict: Wayward WodehouseStar rating: 3/5 Jeeves Takes Charge, adapted from the stories of P.G. Wodehouse, is a comic antique of a very different, more refined order – more Art Deco than G-Plan.But this revival of the 1980 West End one-man show incautiously seeks to liven up Wodehouse with a clowning performance by Sam Harrison as dimwit toff Bertie Wooster and his perspicacious butler Jeeves; among many other caricatures.Harrison’s diction renders Wodehouse’s peerless wit just about audible at the back of the tunnel-shaped venue.Perfectly formed quips include one about a summer’s evening so peaceful ‘one could hear a snail clear its throat’, and a displeased headmistress who ‘rises like an iceberg’.And Hugh Wooldridge’s production is blessed with Caite Hevner’s impressive video projections that take us by train and car from Bertie’s pad in Berkley Square, to the fictional Easby Hall in Shropshire, and Market Snodsbury in Sussex.Harrison’s dipsy Bertie is an effusive and effervescent fusion of Mr Bean and Kenneth Williams: folding up like a deck chair, flopping about like a jellyfish, and dancing Charlestons of excitement around a stout Chesterfield sofa. Mr Bean meets Kenneth Williams: Sam Harrison as the dimwit Bertie Wooster, in the one-man show Jeeves Takes Charge, at the Charing Cross Theatre in London Sidelined: Far from taking charge, Harrison's capable butler Jeeves seems oddly uninvolvedThe titular Jeeves, by contrast, is strangely sidelined, standing like a double-handled silver trophy while other impersonations cavort in highly choreographed squabbles.Sadly, the spectacle of Harrison’s rubber-man calisthenics don’t win extra sympathy for Bertie.Wodehouse’s comedy of Victorian aunts, ferocious fiancés, and boater hats needs more genteel treatment – not a bull in a china shop.Jeeves Takes Charge runs at the Charing Cross Theatre until September 6.