SEASON’S GREETINGS Bridport Arts Centre by MARION COX

IF Christmas is the season to be jolly, nobody told the family and friends who get together to celebrate the festive occasion in this wonderfully observed domestic comedy from the pen of Alan Ayckbourn.

Into the fractious and bickering household of Neville and Belinda arrives bellicose Uncle Neville, armed to the teeth and on the lookout for crime, Rachel, seeking love without a hope of success, and married couples Bernard and Phyllis and Pattie and Eddie, all of whom are engaged in marital warfare.

The women are overworked and overlooked, the men are obsessive and self-absorbed and everyone is either drunk or daft. But the action really hots up with the arrival of Clive, a young and good-looking novelist invited to join the party by Rachel, with disastrous results.

A first-class cast bring this hilarious Encore Theatre Club production to life, directed by Jenny Wiles who keeps the pace racing along as a series of inconsequential events lead to chaos in typical Ayckbourn fashion.

Leading the pack is Chris Knight as Bernard, a doctor with a penchant for boring everyone to death with his puppet shows, while Julie Wood is the long-suffering Belinda, ignored by everyone except Clive, played with understated charm by Clive Whaley.

Great performances also come from Jim Hoskins as the blustering uncle, Ellen Denning as the permanently inebriated Phyllis, John Duff as the infuriating hobbyist Neville, Louisa Hardy as the put-upon Pattie, Hilary Bosworth as the sex-starved Rachel and Barry Irvine as the languid Eddie.

A superb set adds to the pleasure of this excellent production which continues for the rest of the week and which can be guaranteed to get everyone in a festive mood.