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Season's Greetings - National Theatre (Lyttelton)

Catherine Tate and Dominic Rowan in Under the Blue Sky. Photo credit: Johan Persson.

Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle

AN outstanding ensemble cast that includes Catherine Tate and Jenna Russell, will perform Alan Ayckbourn’s Season’s Greetings in the National’s Lyttelton Theatre, where it opens on December 8, 2010 (previews from December 1) before continuing in repertoire.

The cast, directed by Marianne Elliott, will also include Oliver Chris, Mark Gatiss, Katherine Parkinson, Neil Stuke, David Troughton, Nicola Walker and Marc Wootton.

Cheating at snakes and ladders, fighting over comic books, a bungled infidelity beneath the tree – Christmas has arrived in the Bunker household along with family and friends. But as the children lurk just out of sight, it’s the adults who are letting the side down.

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 the TV, brings toy guns for his nieces and determines there’s a thief in their midst.

Season’s Greetings offers a seriously entertaining look at the misery and high jinks of an average family Christmas.

Multi award-winning Catherine Tate‘s theatre credits include Under the Blue Sky (Duke of York’s Theatre); Neil LaBute’s Some Girls (Gielgud Theatre); The 24 Hour Plays (Old Vic and Broadway); The Exonerated (Riverside Studios); A Servant to Two Masters (Royal Shakespeare Company); and The Prince’s Play and The Way of the World (National Theatre).

Jenna Russell‘s theatre credits include Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), Sunday in the Park with George (Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical), Amy’s View, Guys and Dolls, High Society, Martin Guerre and Girlfriends.

Alan Ayckbourn is the author of over 70 plays and from 1972 until 2009 he was Artistic Director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. National Theatre productions of his plays have included Bedroom Farce, A Chorus of Disapproval, A Small Family Business, Way Upstream, Sisterly Feelings and House/Garden.

Marianne Elliott is an Associate Director at the National Theatre, where her productions include Women Beware Women, All’s Well That Ends Well, Harper Regan, Saint Joan (Olivier Award for Best Revival, South Bank Show Award for Theatre), Pillars of the Community (Evening Standard Award for Best Director), Mrs Affleck and War Horse (co-directed with Tom Morris).