Baby It’s Cold Outside – bringing a Black Mountain lesbian comedy into the heart of East Belfast (Bright Umbrella at The Sanctuary Theatre until Sunday 4 January)

Just when you think you’ve seen every variety of Christmas show, Baby It’s Cold Outside makes a comeback. West Belfast playwright Brenda Murphy’s 2013 play is being produced by Bright Umbrella in The Sanctuary Theatre.

In a nutshell, straight white bricklayer Joe from Ballymurphy calls in to check on his pregnant childhood friend who now lives with two other lesbians in an isolated cottage up Black Mountain. The surrounding landscape is about to be smothered in snow. The Christmas tree is up, and soon the mercury is rising as Joe (Brian Markey) comes storming in with his ignorance about ‘queers’ (to use the phrase he oft repeats) and his possessive feelings towards Patsy’s baby.

There’s certainly a lot of social commentary. But there’s also a lot of crass stereotyping and – for most of the first act – the audience around me were largely laughing along with Joe’s inappropriate musings rather than siding with the misunderstood and maligned women. At times the atmosphere felt quite demeaning and dismissive of the LGBT community, even though that’s not the script’s intention.

Markey veers from being cock of the walk to fleeting moments of realising his witlessness, before finally taking control of a tense situation.

Mary McCabe acts her socks off (and her character’s knickers) as Patsy. With two weeks to go until her due date, she lumbers around the cottage’s sitting room, taking no cheek from Joe and spilling his tea … right until he reveals a detail about his actions as the sperm donor for Patsy’s baby. An impressive McCabe stops emotionally strong Patsy from ever being drawn as simply ‘highly strung’.

Michelle Wiggins plays Sally, a butch woman who can lag pipes and gos out of her way to help older neighbours. US student Madison (Jade O’Neill) barely has to bat her eyelids to have Joe fawning over her. Her character is the least well written, and Joe’s warm rapport with Madison totally eclipses the fact he’s still meant to be so sweet on Patsy that he’s braved the bad weather to visit her.

For a play that’s focussed on a lesbian relationship – the couple’s desire to have a family, and what stands in the way – it feels odd that much of the play is seen through the straight eyes of Joe. I’m not sure whether that’s a legacy of the Murphy’s script, Michael Quinn’s decisions as director, or a result of producing a play steeped with very west Belfast humour over in the east.

While some music accompanies scene changes, it’s a shame there was no sound of howling wind or a few flakes of confetti thrown whenever the front door of PJ Davey’s set is opened to give a greater sense of the worsening snowpocalypse. The second act is less secure and some of the plot’s revelations are quite hard to swallow. But in the end, Baby It’s Cold Outside delivers a strong dramatic farcical finish that befits a comedy show (it’s never a hospital drama seeking to be authenticate about medical details).

The coarse and adult nature of Baby It’s Cold Outside is certainly a departure from last year’s family-friendly production of The Magician’s Nephew (based on the CS Lewis book) in The Sanctuary Theatre. Some aspects of the play feel very pertinent. Yet I found the overall tone taken to be challenging: both Joe and some in the audience get an education of sorts, but it seems to come at the cost of diluting the message of advocacy for gay wannabe mums.

Baby It’s Cold Outside continues its run until Sunday 4 January (link to tickets before and after 22 December). 

Photo credit: Emma Dawson

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