Christmas Day is a serving of powerful and playful family drama that spans generations, as a Jewish family deals with getting together for a takeaway on 25 December.Rating
Excellent
We know Christmas is pretty inescapable. The religious part of it is glossed over more often than not. Some Christian symbolism does creep in, perhaps through the angel at the top of the tree, a carol about a newborn king, or the star-shaped lights. But for people who actively don’t celebrate Christmas it must be hard to get away. We get sensitive emails from companies asking if we don’t want to hear about Mothers’ Day or Fathers’ Day, but we can’t opt out of Christmas.
Christmas Day is the second play by writer Sam Grabiner, whose debut last year, Boys on the Verge of Tears, won an Olivier. It, unsurprisingly, follows a family’s Christmas Day. But being a Jewish family (along with a couple of guests), it doesn’t sit easily. Christmas Day is playing for the first time at Almeida Theatre across the holiday season, whichever ones you may or may not celebrate.
Siblings Noah (Samuel Blenkin) and Tamara (Bel Powley) are preparing to host for the day along with Noah’s girlfriend, Maud (Callie Cooke), in their grotty North London guardianship property. Uncomfortably, their dad, Elliot (Nigel Lindsay), and Tamara’s ex, Aaron (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) are the guests, and bring emotional baggage with them instead of presents. A powerful interrogation of what it might mean to be a British Jew in 2025 starts as they serve their different takes on what it means to be having a gathering on Christmas Day over a Chinese takeaway. As the argument takes unexpected and shocking turns, there’s an unspoken invitation for us watching to wonder and self-reflect.
Even in the middle of intense and explosive arguing, Grabiner retains a much-needed humour which is paced and pitched just right to stop the intensity becoming overwhelming. In more explosive moments where I had no idea how the moment could be recovered, I often found a way to collect myself again in a joke. An exhausting emotional instability that is an extreme but familiar example of family gatherings is delivered with skill and geniality by the impressive cast. Special mention to Jamie Ankrah in his delivery of the much-needed lightness, or weirdness, as the three characters of Wren, Sphinx and Felix.
The mighty cast is supported by their environment. The lighting (Jon Clark) and sound (Max Pappenheim) serve both to the realism and absurdity of the place and the situation. A sparse but scruffily appealing set by Miriam Buether creates the sense of meeting perhaps where they shouldn’t at a time when perhaps some would choose not to.
Christmas Day strikes a powerful chord in one act. The cast use Grabiner’s passionate and playful writing to show their collective great skill. As we make our way through the layers of meaning it feels very personal – from an examination of devastating current events to the introspection of a people’s generational trauma, from the meaning of identity to identifying what makes you. Because we live in the world that we do, and not just because it’s December, Christmas Day feels incredibly meaningful right now.
Written by Sam Grabiner
Directed by James MacDonald
Set design by Miriam Buether
Costume design by Evie Gurney
Lighting design by Jon Clark
Sound design by Max Pappenheim
Christmas Day is playing at Almeida Theatre until Thursday 8 January.
