The play centres on a your average disparate family gathering at Christmas; the arrangements leading up to the big day famously a triumph of hope over experience which is repeated every year. Everybody has at least one of the characters within their own family, from the drunken and slightly martyred Phyllis, Bernard the bumbling and ineffective doctor, or the more unsettling Harvey whose own frustrated military ambitions lead to him thinking the most suitable present for a seven year old is if not one gun, then two.

To throw a complete spanner in the works Rachel, the perennial spinster sister brings home a handsome young writer to ruffle the feathers of all the ladies present who shamelessly vie for his attention with some hilarious results. Jenny Funnell as Rachel does a magnificent job vascillating between a hand-wringing dormouse and a sobbing virago and Matthew Bose as Clive the writer plays him with an urbane slant rather after the style of Hugh Grant, fending off all the female attention.

Dennis Lill as Harvey deserves much credit for his performance as the bigoted and irascible Harvey, planted firmly in the best chair glued to the same war film shown each Christmas and never one to keep his opinions to himself, most of which can’t fail to amuse.

The closing of the first half where Belinda, the hostess (Karen Ascoe) and Clive engage in some rather fraught hanky-panky under the Christmas tree only to be caught in the act is extremely funny, but the second half is definitely where the best laughs are to be had. Bernard’s yearly puppet theatre to entertain the children makes its appearance and Christopher Timothy as Bernard definitely has a hidden talent as a puppeteer. Ricky Groves as Eddie and Mark Healy as Neville the two hapless husbands make a very believable pair, and add to the mayhem by doing what husbands do best at Christmas, i.e. not much.

It’s a great show and if the ending is a bit of an anti-climax perhaps that best describes the average family Christmas!

Jacquie Vowles