SEASONS GREETINGS – ENOUGH XMAS TO LAST YOU TILL XMAS

It’s a double dose of Christmas cheer for me this year because, at a matinee on Sunday,  I have filled up on decorated trees and garishly wrapped presents and crazy relatives.  It’s Christmas in June for Hunters Hill Theatre as they sled confidently into their second production for 2018, SEASONS GREETINGS.  This Alan Ayckbourn comic offering is black in places, farcical in others and always entertaining.  It’s a great choice for me on a wet Sunday afternoon and for the company … this kind of complicated, character driven comedy is the sort of thing community theatres do so well.

We meet Belinda.  It’s Christmas eve and she is putting the finishing touches on the Christmas tree.  Harried and irritated she has much to put up with.  Her husband, Neville, is a tinkerer and he has manifestly overdone the mechanisation of Christmas cheer with a gadget that brings on lights you can see from space and blaring carols that would deafen anyone in the house.  Not that Uncle Harvey cares, he just ups the level of the TV where he is watching his own brand of traditional Christmas media, violently bloody war stories…to which he adds he own enthusiastic commentary.  There are nine adults, in all, who will inhabit this story, each one as dysfunctional as these three.

As Belinda, Claudia Bedford is amped up and alert to trouble, showing a good command of the role in all the little details that Belinda is worried about.  It’s a busy time and not much help from husband, Neville the unperturbable.  That relationship, or lack of it, is nicely drawn early and it needs to be to foreground some very funny work from Bedford later in the show. She has this way of saying ‘Super’ that has a serious raised eyebrow superciliousness.  Her flirtatious side, when it arrives full gale, is nicely put across as well.  John Cross is also great fun as this laid back, screwdriver always ready, gadgetman.  When Belinda does a lovely little speech about longing, his monosyllabic responses are replete with the distance of a long marriage and he is very funny when he refuses to buy into the chaos around him.

The puppet show, for example.  We meet poor Bernard, Gerard Hawkins.  Bernard is a serial incompetent with a heart of gold and an alcoholic wife.  His ineffectuality might be symbolised by the puppet show which he does each year and for which he comes in for quite a deal of scorn, but his real inability arrives at crisis point in the climax of the play.  Here, Hawkins brings a real humanity to this poor, put-upon, clueless creature.  No-one is more scornful than Martin Maling’s Harvey.  The tension around this dull and elongated event roils the first sequence of the play and Maling is in there boots and all stirring up resentment.  He is quite repellent with his military bearing and pontification and, unlike Bernard, he doesn’t take his come-uppence like a man.  I loved the way Hawkins didn’t let this guy off the hook.  He also has my favourite line of the play … “The pig shot on and off!”

 

The alcoholic wife in question is Phyllis, played by Susan Mozell.  An offstage figure of fun for most of the first scene, Phyllis’ insistence on cooking their large Christmas Eve dinner is one of the stressors for Belinda and we hear, rather than see, the anarchy of Phyllis let loose.  But does Mozell know how to make an entrance? Does she ever.  It’s hilarious and momentary scene-stealing from Mozel whose sherry induced hysteria over the  board game playing is also highly entertaining.

On that occasion she is versing a ring-in to the uncomfortable family Christmas in Clive.  Played by Michael Arvithis, Clive is a supposedly successful author and he’s there at the behest of Rachel, Belinda’s sister.  Rachel is played with very effective tongue-tied, spinsterishness by Liz Lynch and her lovely “sex’ monologue is heartbreaking in its repression, sadness and its use of logic to hide the hurt.   Arvithis has some very technical scenes leading towards the climax and he handles them with well-rehearsed aplomb … he deals with so much stage business as well as bringing a character who seems to be out of his depth in this very peculiar family.  It’s polished work from him, especially the sequence where he recites his reviews by heart.

Also rung-in is unhappy couple Pattie (Prudence Foxe) and Eddie (David Hummerston).  These pair do not get on … they snipe at each other.  How Pattie got pregnant is a mystery, given that Hummerston’s Eddie is an insensitive lump.  The relationship seems less rocky toward the end and we hope the best for them.  Mention must be made of Foxe’s absolute control over a very, very complicated piece of business that she is involved in. There must be so much rehearsal to make that scene work and it is smooth and hilariously precise.

Director Peter Paige has such a strong command of these kind of physical challenges in Ayckbourn’s play, he creates groups very well and he moves his characters with ease.  There is so much work gone into SEASONS GREETINGS so that it appears effortless and joyous.    Especially those very impressive quick costume changes.  The costuming (Rhonda Chapman) is a blast from the past with pushed up jacket sleeves and turtlenecks and so on … I swear I once had  Rachael’s purple and pink and blue number in my wardrobe.

It’s a great set too. (Design: Tom Bannerman) The Christmas tree on a platform so all the action around it can be seen easily.  And there are plenty of entrances , each working incredibly well to never seem to clog up despite some of the swift comings and goings.   The set dressing is all in ducks in flight and Monarch of the Glen vintage and the stairs are solid and sturdy which is not something you always find.  It also gives a simple way to use the lighting despite some of the venue’s limitations in that regard. (LX Design: Roderick Van Gelder).   There is scope for colour in the window and through the front door and the state that is used for the late at night present raid is just perfect, dimmed and cold without being murky of hiding the faces with too much shadow.  And the last scene with its early morning lavenders on the stage right wall contrasting with the  orange through the glass of the front door looks great.

The sound effects are well sourced. (Design: Peter Tucker). Especially the children playing which doesn’t sound forced at all and has occasional moments where we can hear the words clearly, adding to the effectiveness. The kitchen hubbub is also well created and I loved the dirge atmosphere to the carols between the scenes and the clever way the songs perk up as the scene opens.

And, of course, a big shout out to the props person, Coralie Fraser who really gives a Christmas-phile lots to love in this mid year Christmas fix.  It’s a really enjoyable production created with love, presented with care and enough joy to humble any humbug.

SEASONS GREETINGS from Hunters Hill Theatre [Facebook] continues until June 17.   Think of it as a cracker early Chrissie present!