50 Ways to Leave Your Lover at Christmas

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A Yuletide cocktail of break-up stories at The Bush Theatre

It is amazing how different The Bush Theatre looks on every visit, the tiny space reinvented for each performance: proscenium arch for The Tinderbox earlier this year, windows open with a view onto the Green for the Broken Space season and now lights back on and windows covered for 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover at Christmas.

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover at Christmas, written by Leah Chillery, Ben Ellis, Stacey Gregg, Lucy Kirkwood, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and Ben Schiffer, is essentially a re-working of the summer performance, with a few new sketches and a festive flavour. We were treated at the outset to some alternative Christmas songs such as “I’m dreaming of a white mistress” and lyrics such as “sad tidings I bring to our little fling”.

As with the summer version, the four-strong cast of Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Claire Keelan, Ralf Little, Michelle Terry take us through a breathless series of songs and sketches on the theme of breaking up – except that this time it all happens at a time of year supposedly filled with festive cheer.

Much of it is hilarious, such as the awkward boy who keeps trying to dump his girlfriend but instead finds himself moving in with her and then engaged to her. Then there is the married couple having one bedtime argument after another but never quite managing to break-up. At one point, the cast, obviously enjoying the performance immensely, were having trouble suppressing their giggles.

However, there are also more moving moments such as the cancer survivor contemplating Christmas alone after her lover left her because of her illness and the touching relationship between two men about to be separated by war after one is conscripted and is leaving to face his near certain death. The scene, set during the Second World War, is infused with homoerotic undertones as the two men exchange glances and hold hands but their feelings remain unexpressed.

At one point in the 90 minute show, Terry appeared to go off-piste, suddenly recognising a former boyfriend in the audience and taking revenge by publicly dumping him – all performed in such a natural way that it seemed almost genuine.

The musical interludes had the audience in raptures, particularly a song about a man who is in love with a cow. But the ‘jokes’ about disabled children, paedophilia and leukaemia were not funny the first time around and, in my opinion, were not funny this time around either. This part was just pure bad taste and elicited nothing more than awkward giggles from the audience. 

 

Traditional Christmas show this is not. Instead of Cinders, pantomime horses and ugly sisters, the energetic foursome in 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover at Christmas speed through a taboo-breaking script which is rash, brash and sometimes shocking. We are taken through a range of emotions which mostly leave us laughing – but you might want to leave your grandmother at home. 

 

Yasmine Estaphanos

14 December 2008