Happy Christmas, New End
The Seagull; King Lear, New London
A blast of seasonal cheer at the New End Theatre. Paul Birtill’s bitter and hilarious family satire, Happy Christmas, starts like a subversive salute to The Homecoming. Upwardly mobile John introduces his posh fiancée Mary to his dysfunctional all-male family. The script is crammed with offbeat gags. ‘Strange taxi-driver,’ giggles Mary as she enters; ‘do you really think his granddad was on the Titanic?’ She refuses to be cowed by John’s ghastly brothers. Kenny is a workshy alcoholic — ‘There’s an art to being on the dole’ — who immediately bums a tenner off her and later rifles through her purse. Schizophrenic Mark insists on boring her with his mad, painful poetry about the pain of being mad. And her prospective father-in-law, Jack, demands £5 for a Christmas dinner of peas boiled in tomato sauce.
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