REVIEW: CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED at Etcetera Theatre 11-24 December 2023

‘daring and imaginative’ ★★★

        Tuula Costelloe’s new play, CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED, has elements of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, in that both stories show a flawed character confronting the misdeeds of their past on Christmas Eve. But Kate Ghotti, the main character of Costelloe’s play, is not a miser but a celebrity, and she is afraid, not of dying alone and unmourned like Ebenezer Scrooge, but of being cancelled. The play unfolds over the course of one night, as she attempts to prevent a damaging news story from being printed.

Her series of encounters with figures who have the power to help her, but may not choose to, is full of intriguing moments; a particular highlight is her confrontation with a disgruntled assistant, played by Rosa French. Tuula Costelloe’s performance as Kate is fascinatingly quiet and calm. Graeme Culliton, Lara De Belder, Megan Sangster, and Anas Zabadne round out the cast, giving distinctive, memorable performances.

There is something very compelling about the setup of the play, in which, on a kind of rogue’s progress, Kate confronts one person after another, but this does run the risk of feeling a bit repetitive. And, though the supporting characters are vivid, the world we are in feels underdeveloped - as does Kate. Who is she when she’s not being cancelled? Is she acting any differently from usual and speaking more honestly to the people in her life, or is she completely unaltered by this crisis?

The picture the play sets out of a city rife with corruption, in which both those who misuse power and those who are abused by it are playing the same self-serving game, is potent, and serves as a pungent antidote to Christmas cheer and sentiment. The play unfolds in a world in which everyone is unrelentingly terrible but set on maintaining the appearance of virtue. I started to wonder whether this made the play seem to pull its punches; Kate’s transgressions appear to be no worse than anyone else’s. So if the play seemed to be about watching a charismatic villain meet her deserved fate, it actually reveals itself to be about a scapegoat unfairly singled out to bear the collective guilt, or perhaps even about the importance of accepting the inevitable cancellation that comes to all. Overall, this play is daring and imaginative, and I am very intrigued to see what Costelloe does next both as a writer and as an actor.

CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED, written by Tuula Costelloe, directed by Hector Smith, Etcetera Theatre, 11-24th December, Made For You Productions, https://www.etceteratheatrecamden.com/events/christmas-cpyr5-fzkrz-2n7x3-lxh9e-k6b22.

Reviewed by Clio Doyle.