Are Yule Being Served? – it’s Christmas Eve and emotions are running high at the understaffed inn (The MAC until Sunday 31 December)

The hospitality industry provides a rich seam of material for alternative Christmas shows. Fraught industrial relations between workers and managers, agitated customers, the heightened emotions of the festive season, and the pickling effect of too much booze on end of year brains.

Written by Caroline Curran and directed by Dominic Montague, Are Yule Being Served looks back at an eventful Christmas Eve shift in the Wind Yer Neck Inn.

As she approaches the end of her tenth year at the inn, Scarlett (Caroline) is facing a fork in the road. To continue working front of house, or to take up an acting opportunity across the big pond. Big boss (Patrick Buchanan) is on the verge of declaring his hand and instigating a workplace romance. Meanwhile in the kitchen as well as in his home life, chef Gary (Rhodri Lewis) is battling his own fully stocked larder of demons.

A blizzard of customers – eccentric, lonely and nearly always troubled – stumble in looking for comfort and succour on this Christmas Eve. There’s a wedding in one room, a funeral gathering in the other, and the container holding a granny’s ashes is just asking for trouble. The show gets off to an upbeat start with a musical number: Buchanan has a rich baritone voice that is shown off again later in the production.

The jokes come thick and fast. We’re introduced to the foibles of the other unseen members of staff, at least, those who have bothered to turn up on one of the busiest days of the year. And the plot acknowledges that so many in the creative industries rely on hospitality shifts to see them through the times when they have no on-stage work.

Curran has a history of exploring real life social issues through the medium of comedy theatre. Over 70 minutes, you’ll see aspects of your past, present or future self – or those you know – portrayed on stage. It’s a time of year when fear, hurt and insecurity are externally suppressed but internally suffered. And Buchanan, Curran and Lewis capture it well.

The sound effects and set may be spartan, but there’s a lot of heart in this three-handed festive performance. Are Yule Being Served is running in the Upstairs Theatre at The MAC until Sunday 31 December.

Trigger warning: Whamageddon!

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