Synopsis

The story revolves around four days of a profoundly dysfunctional family’s Christmas holiday in a suburban English home, revealing the misery and marital dissatisfaction beneath the forced festive cheer.

The play begins on Christmas Eve at the home of Neville and Belinda. Their extended family and a few friends have gathered for a long, uncomfortable holiday weekend.
The guests include Belinda’s anxious, unmarried sister Rachel and her new novelist companion, Clive.
The hosts’ tensions are high. Belinda is frustrated with her disengaged husband Neville, while his sister Phyllis is a drunken and clumsy liability in the kitchen.
Other relatives include Bernard, Phyllis’s well-meaning but inept doctor husband, who is preoccupied with his annual, dreadful puppet show.
Rounding out the cast is Uncle Harvey, a cantankerous and paranoid former security guard obsessed with TV violence.
The play follows a series of escalating farcical mishaps and romantic intrigues.