Some critics, such as Tom Paulin, have responded more negatively, saying that "Abigail's Party" appears to represent a middle-class "schadenfreude", with the only true middle-class character, Sue, looking on at the antics of the couples with disdain. Likewise, Dennis Potter wrote a critical review of the play in "The Sunday Times", claiming that it was "based on nothing more edifying than rancid disdain, for it is a prolonged jeer, twitching with genuine hatred, about the dreadful suburban tastes of the dreadful lower middle classes". Leigh has rejected this, describing it as a tragi-comedy which is "sympathetic to all the characters, whatever their foibles, not least Beverly... The play is a lamentation, not a sneer". He has also argued that the characters (Beverly and Laurence in particular) reflected the real-life behaviour of aspiring couples in mid-1970s suburbia.