The Jewish Chronicle
Review: Season's Greetings
Seasonal blues? Here's the antidote
December 17, 2010 11:12
Seasonal blues? Here's the antidote
December 17, 2010 11:12I do not quite buy director Marrianne Elliott's point that Alan Ayckbourn is comparable to Pinter. But it is undoubtedly true that behind the net curtains of the suburban houses, in which this country's favourite comic playwright sets his plays, there is much darkness.
For this starry revival of Ayckbourn's seasonal offering of 1980, the dissection of the Bunker family's frailties takes place in designer Rae Smith's huge cross-section of the family house.
Set over four harrowing days of Christmas, the play serves up three dysfunctional marriages, two attempts at adultery and a well-armed Uncle Harvey.
Even before Catherine Tate's Belinda has finished hanging tree decorations, the exchanges between couples and in-laws are already strained. By the time her sister's boyfriend, Clive (Oliver Chris), arrives, entire conversations are had through gritted teeth.
Apart from getting drunk, the only distraction on offer is the traditional and traditionally-hated puppet show, performed by Mark Gatiss's incompetent doctor. His already-drunk wife, Phyllis (Jenna Russell), is cooking the lamb for Christmas eve, though according to Belinda's husband, Neville (Neil Stuke), the joint looks fresher than she does.
Thus Ayckbourn prepares us for two intricately choreographed climaxes, the first of which arrives as attempted sex underneath the Christmas tree.
Between scenes Elliott effectively over-eggs the noir by plunging the set in cold blue light with a chilling rumble that could have been recorded at the gates of hell. Paradoxically, it all rather undermines the point that Ayckbourn is as dark as Mamet or Pinter - Mamet and Pinter need no such help to convince us of their gloom.
If comparisons have to be made, the subversive realism of Mike Leigh would work at least as well. For like Ayckbourn, Leigh can be an antidote to the discontent of real life.
In this terrific cast, no one trumps the lantern-jawed David Troughton whose coiled Harvey is quite literally the loose cannon of the family. Also worth mentioning is Stuke's chauvinistic but knowing husband to Belinda, and Nicola Walker as Belinda's lovelorn sister who sways between well-adjusted sanity and despairing sobs.
The strength of Ayckbourn is that it all seems so recognisable. Though if you recognise the Bunker family and their guests, your festivities are in big trouble.
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