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The Review - THEATRE by WIEBKE TOEBELMANN
Published: 30 October 2008

Bah! Humbug! Send Santa to Guantanamo!

REVIEW: THE DAY THEY BANNED CHRISTMAS
Courtyard Theatre

TRAGEDY hits the little stage of Hoxton’s Courtyard Theatre this week.
Christopher James’ new play, The Day They Banned Christmas, is an incisive commentary on British society and current events – with some fine acting and many righteous messages.
After a terrorist attack on the London 2012 Olympics, retaliation acts against Muslims spiral out of control. The government subsequently passes an act banning all religious holidays, including Christmas.
Also, a wall is erected that drives Muslims into a ghetto-like settlement, designed to “protect” them from hostilities.
The unfolding events leave four people changed forever.
Soft-hearted Felicity (Muireann Ryan), who lost her son in the bombing, seeks revenge and completely loses sight of reality. Her cousin Christian (a superb Simon Desborough), is an East End lad, and a traumatised ex-soldier who holds a terrible secret. Ismail (Lowell Baricanosa) and Anna (Linda Lowell), both Muslims, are expecting their first child and move to the Muslim settlement. Anna, a high-flying TV reporter, feels betrayed by the increasingly oppressive government.
The Day They Banned Christmas is poignant and cleverly done. But at times the play seems too much of a vehicle for the writer’s own beliefs on current events as he tries to tackle all the “big issues”, while perhaps he would have been better off focusing on just one or two.
The dialogue between Anna and Ismail especially transports a few too many over-explanatory and righteous messages (“Governments need enemies to spend money on weapons and defence”).
Nevertheless, The Day They Banned Christmas has many interesting and surprising twists.
What starts out as a tale about ordinary people and their daily struggle turns into an allegory for our fear of “the other”.
Until November 9
0870 163 0717

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