Ho ho ho! It's Christmas in Blakedown (From Kidderminster Shuttle)

Ho ho ho! It's Christmas in Blakedown

11:13am Thursday 22nd March 2012 in Blakedown By William Tomaney

IT will feel like Christmas has come early this year in Blakedown.

Alan Ayckbourn’s Season’s Greetings will be performed at Theatre 282, Belbroughton Road, from today until Saturday.

The play offers an entertaining look at the misery and high jinx of an average family Christmas – cheating at snakes and ladders, fighting over comics and a bungled infidelity beneath a Christmas tree.

Christmas has arrived at the Bunker household, along with a gaggle of family and friends who seem hell-bent on creating havoc with hilarious and serious consequences.

Presiding over the festivities are two warring uncles, one a kindly incompetent doctor with an interminable puppet show to perform, the other a bullying retired security guard who dominates control of the family television.

His own self-indulged love of firearms almost leads to tragedy when he is determined there is a thief in their midst.

Ayckbourn combines the pressures of personal relationships with a desire by the characters to enjoy an ordinary Christmas, which turns out to be anything but.