Alan Ayckbourn’s recreation of a family Christmas in his play Season's Greetings is both very funny and appalling. The Oxford Theatre Guild chose it as the climax of its 60th year, and they carried it off with gusto. The play paints a bleak picture of relationships: a hopeless alcoholic, failed or failing marriages, deluded or useless men, and desperate women. The whole play is misery writ large, and yet the excellent cast had the audience screaming with laughter.
It starts slowly and builds as good comedy often does, establishing the characters: Chris Harris as Harvey inhabits the stage from before the audience has settled, eagerly watching a film which he watches every Christmas. Nick Quartley is excellent as the pathetic Bernard, a feebly incompetent doctor whose obsession with his tedious puppet show creates misery for the assembled company, while hidden in the kitchen his drunken wife Phyllis (Moya Hughes) ruins the roast lamb supper she has insisted on cooking. Jo Lainchbury is Belinda, the glamorous hostess (shades of Beverly in Abigail’s Party) who tries to preside over the festivities with determined optimism.
Into this mix comes the unknown guest, a writer called Clive (James Silk). He has been invited by Belinda’s very unglamorous sister Rachel (Meriel Patrick), and it is he who (wittingly and unwittingly) is the catalyst for the Christmas mayhem which ensues.
There are plenty of good jokes and the cast, who were excellent all round, make the most of them. But they bring out too the sadness of the characters. Rachel stumps across the stage ouzing self-pity – you can easily believe she will never get a boyfriend. Belinda tries to unburden herself to her husband Neville (Richard Readshaw), but he is far too busy repairing a toy car to notice. Even Clive outwardly successful and attractive and much deferred to as a writer of a successful book, discovers that no-one in the household except for the besotted Rachel has actually read his book – or has even heard of him.
So what we are presented with is a dark and depressing view of the horrors of Christmas gone wrong mixed with loads of great comic moments, not least the terrific climax to the first half. I loved it. Do go and see it. It’s much more fun than Christmas shopping!
