Life

Christmas comedy criminally funny

REVIEW

Mistletoe & Crime Lyric Theatre, Belfast

MARIE Jones's Misteltoe & Crime is a raucous, festively themed, Belfast-set farce.

Sue (Tara Lynne O'Neill) is a PSNI officer who can't wait to hang up her bulletproof vest after 22 long years in uniform. By contrast, her new partner Aileen (Katie Tumelty) is a mature raw recruit who has finally realised her lifelong dream of becoming a copper.

While Sue's cynical streak is as wide as the M2 foreshore, wet-behind-the-ears rookie Aileen cannot wait to begin their first night of cleaning up the mean streets of south Belfast - and that night happens to be Christmas Eve.

In true cop-show tradition, this mismatched pair soon find that they make a good 'yin and yang' team as they wade into a sea of seasonal

madness including a Latvian woman who is being turfed out (cat and all) by her abusive home-grown partner, a scatter-brained Hugo Duncan-obsessed pensioner gone AWOL and a park-dwelling itinerant called Haribo who's determined to secure himself a warm cell for Christmas night.

Jones gifts her Dan Gordon-directed cast with witty, authentically coarse colloquial dialogue guaranteed to go down a storm with local audiences, while dynamic set design ensures we are zipped from scene to scene with minimal interruption.

The Belfast playwright also throws in a selection box of memorable supporting characters conjured up by actors gamely taking on multiple roles: Roscoe, Ciaran Nolan's Yellow Pack Duke Special of a Belfast busker, steals every scene not already pilfered by his turn as larger-than-life tramp, Haribo. Jones also ensures that her lead coppers' personal lives occasionally intrude on the action, thereby ticking yet another essential cop drama 'box': Sue is being benignly stalked by an ex-lover, while Aileen's wilful teenager (Louise Parker) suddenly drops off the radar during a night out.

Despite the odd tonal blip when the play addresses serious 'social issues' like domestic abuse and teenage drinking, Mistletoe & Crime offers a festive feast of laugh-out-loud fun.

It's a guaranteed good night out for cops and robbers alike. * Mistletoe & Crime, Lyric Theatre, Belfast, until Sunday January 11. Lyrictheatre.co.uk. David Roy