Some plays are so part of the British subconscious that bringing them to the stage is an act of bravery.
As a BBC Play for Today, Abigail's Party brought Mike Leigh's slightly-terrifying version of 70s suburbia into living rooms across the nation, and was watched by many who would never had ventured out to see it performed live.
Such was its impact that, in the opening performance at the Liverpool Playhouse , the audience was laughing at lines before they had been spoken.
And a gasp of happy anticipation greeted Beverly's request for a record, which would of course turn out to be by Demis Roussos.
So seeing Abigail's Party now is a very different experience to being hit by the slap-in-the-face surprise of the original 1977 Hampstead Theatre production, which Leigh partly based on improvisation with its actors, or indeed the TV production.
Familiarity and a changed social landscape makes it more of a comfortable old favourite than a satirical statement about the pretensions of the rising middle classes. But it is no less brilliant for that.
Jodie Prenger's paisley kaftaned Beverly is wonderful combination of voluptuous charm and sharp-elbowed spite.
She is queen of this awkward dinner party, where the battle lines are drawn over the most apparently innocuous of small talk subjects - olives, a polite refusal of a second gin and tonic, which chair to sit on...
She is even hilarious when not speaking at all - her body language conveying her quickly shifting moods, from a vampish glance at neighbour Tony to the rigid-backed walk of an affronted host.
For TV fans, this is a star-studded cast. As well as Prenger, who first came to attention as the winner of BBC talent show I'd Do Anything in 2008, there is Midsomer Murders' Daniel Casey as her stressed-out estate agent husband Laurence, as well as Vicky Binns (Corrie, Emmerdale), Calum Callaghan (Mr Selfridge) and Rose Keegan (Babylon, Lilies, Marple) as her neighbours.
The tension builds wonderfully - perhaps a little slowly at the start, but by the opening of the second act the cracks are not so much beginning to show as threatening major subsidence.
Casey is genuinely red-faced as Laurence parries Beverly's passive-aggressive digs with increasing fury.
Tony (Callaghan), one of Richmond Road's newest arrivals, is all simmering aggression, while wife Angela's (Binns) smile stretches into a grimace as she tries to pretend this isn't the most toxic drinks gathering since Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
Meanwhile, from next door comes the sound of never seen 15-year-old Abigail and her friends genuinely having fun.
Theatre shows to look forward to in Liverpool for 2019
Understandably, her mother Sue was not in the mood to throw herself into Beverly's hospitality, and Keegan's eyes were screaming behind her frozen smile.
But the novelty of her false cheery delivery of Sue's lines very quickly wore off as almost every single one was spoken in exactly the same way.
Janet Bird's set is lushly detailed with fabulous 70s wallpaper and a soda syphon that transports you straight back to the era.
And while it is impossible to eclipse Alison Steadman's and Tim Stem's performances altogether, they definitely had competition.
Abigail's Party is at the Liverpool Playhouse until Saturday, March 30.
