Season’s Greetings by Alan Ayckbourn at Richmond Theatre

Only twice in my life have I left a theatre before the end of a production and I regret that Monday night made it a hat trick. I was really surprised as Alan Ayckbourn used to be one of my favourite playwrights - I laughed throughout “Small Family Business”, thinking it was a really clever insight into middle class life.

Season’s Greetings was written in the eighties, which may explain why I felt it was like a banal situation comedy observing the dull day-to-day goings on of a typical family during the Christmas season when a host of characters are forced to endure each other’s company. Maybe I missed the point.

Anyway, it’s just before Christmas and a couple (Belinda – Glynis Barber from Eastenders - and Neville) have an assortment of stereotypical characters come to stay. There’s Bernard (played artfully by Christopher Timothy) who is on first sight a soft hearted doctor who is bullied by his forceful wife Phyllis (again, another excellent piece of acting by Sue Wallace).

There's rumbustious Harvey – a bullying former security guard with a passion for guns and action movies. Eddie (played by Ricky Groves of Eastenders fame) and his long suffering heavily pregnant wife Pattie (Barbara Drennan). And archetypal older singleton Rachel (Jenny Funnell) who is nervously playing host to new friend and author Clive (Matthew Bose).

The audience – who were significantly older than myself and my companion – giggled a little throughout the first three scenes of Act 1 but I am afraid that I remained unmoved. There was little comedy, no plot and no tension. It was all rather dull. Of course, I could relate to the numerous references to the sorts of family disagreements that arose but there was nothing to really lift it.

Just before the interval we were treated to a few comic scenes – inebriated people falling up the stairs, a child’s toy making a bit of a racket and a bit of hanky-panky under the Christmas tree. I think this was the first occasion that I laughed.

Against our better judgement we returned after the interval, hoping that the pace would pick up a bit but after suffering through Bernard’s doomed puppet show we left before the final scene (maybe we missed the best bit?).

I don’t like writing negatively. But I really do find it hard to find any positive things to say. The actors did their very best but the script didn’t help them much. I guess the play avoids violence or any modern day themes that some find distasteful so it would be safe to take along older relatives for a harmless night out. The rest of the audience did laugh a bit so maybe it was just that I was in the wrong mood. Sorry, but this play just felt empty and anachronistic to me.