A play about loneliness, togetherness, longing, warmth and love, from the author of Abigail's Party. 1979. The winter of discontent is over and Margaret Thatcher's regime is about to transform the country. Old friends come together in a Kilburn bedsit for a drunken celebration of their mutual affection. Mike Leigh's play Ecstasy was first staged at Hampstead Theatre, London, in 1979, with a cast including Julie Walters, Stephen Rea and Jim Broadbent. It was revived at Hampstead Theatre in 2011 in a production directed by Mike Leigh, marking the first time the award-winning author and director returned to one of his past plays. 'Mike Leigh has a wonderful gift for conversation so rock-bottom-boring that it is hilarious' — Guardian 'Heartbreak exists a hair's breadth away from hilarity... Ecstasy delivers on its name' — New York Times