Season's Greetings

Season's Greetings is a play by Sir Alan Ayckbourn (Tr 1952) which is on at the National Theatre this Christmas. It has been well reviewed, including by Quentin Letts (Ha 1976).

Two writers of different kinds both schooled by the same English department, and possibly both taught by Jack Thomas (staff 1954) - who famously, and possibly apocryphally, said that Ayckbourn would never amount to much if he tried a career in writing. Ayckbourn cut the original form for Season's Greetings from three acts in three hours by a third, and Lett's review is an example of journalistic brevity. The suburban characters


use intrinsically English expressions, enjoying nothing better than discussing power tools, preferably in the wife-free zone of a shed or pub.

"Great set" say Quentin Letts

When Neville is asked if there is any ginger wine in the house, he doesn’t just say, ‘yes’. He says, truculently, that ‘we are awash’ in the stuff. …

David Troughton’s Uncle Harvey has the gait and neck tweaks of a former chief pety officer. 


Brevity is a virtue in a preacher as well - but one more difficult to attain than it seems. I think it was Churchill who once wrote  I am sorry to have written you a long letter. I did not have time to write a short one."