The surface plasmon wave is a surface wave confined at the interface between a dielectric and a metal. The excitation of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) on a gold thin film is discussed within the Kretschmann configuration, where the coupling with the excitation light is achieved by means of a prism in total reflection. The electromagnetic principles are detailed and a simple experimental setup is described that can be used for laboratory experiments for senior students in the third or fourth year of university. This experiment allows accurate determination of the angle of plasmon extinction and discussion of the principles of biosensors based on the SPR. A slight modification of the setup allows the investigation of the dependence of SPR on wavelength and illustrates the damping of SPR due to its coupling with the interband transitions of the gold thin film. (Contains 7 figures.)