BATS Theatre is offering three ‘end of year’ shows: Smells Like Xmas and The Better Best Possible Album Party That Anybody Has Ever Been Two opened last night and These Are A Few Of My Favourite Sings opens tonight.

Binge Culture’s devising cast – Rachel Baker, Joel Baxendale, Freya Sadgrove, Mouce Young and Maria Williams – welcome us to Smells Like Xmas in the Heyday Dome with cautions to behave as we know we must if Santa is to grace us with his unseen presence this night.

An intoned prayer, psalm or hymn (voice over) sets a new tone. My Anglo-centric consciousness wonders whether it’s Jewish or Islamic – and post-show enquiry reveals it’s actually a Byzantine nativity song (‘Christmas Troparion’ written by St. Romanos the Melodist) and probably sung in ancient Greek.

This heralds a poor theatre-cum-school concert-style re-enactment of Joseph leading a pregnant Mary on a Donkey, and it is assumed we all recognise the image. Throughout the ensuing hour the Santa Syndrome and the Christian legend that gives Christmas its name vie for stage time in various amusing ways.

“Let’s talk about Christmas” sparks off a range of musings where the actors tag in to continue a line of thought or enquiry. A poker-faced woman in a wedding dress who turns out to be an angel – the Angel Gabriel for those in the know – remains determined to bring the onstage action back to the Nativity story, abetted by a melodious recorded voice telling the tale …

Cassette tapes are juggled in an old ghetto-blaster to replace the voice with music or vice versa and, Binge Culture style being what it is, the awkwardness of all that fluffing about adds to their determinedly egalitarian ethos. There is no whiff of hierarchy here; indeed they seem almost apologetic at having the temerity to take up our time with this … what should we call it? Entertainment? Well yes, in part …

The bit where Mary tries to explain to Joseph she’s pregnant is a gem of gender-political satire. But the hyper Santa disco dancing routine that asks us to join in becomes confronting because it’s so obviously crass yet we want to be supportive to these hard-working performers …

There is method in their gaucheness, of course. They are not here to teach us anything or tell us what’s right, wrong, good or bad. Smells Like Xmas provokes each of us to consider where we stand on the meaning and purpose of ‘Xmas’ and gives us the chance to resist being manipulated into mindless acceptance or conformity.

Audience involvement is handled well, with more than one friend of Binge Culture being happy sit with Santa, or on his knee, to determine what they really want, then take roles to build and finally complete the iconic Nativity Scene.

The sudden addition of a Babushka (Russian grandmother) to the Three Kings scene, and the breakout into the Kate Bush song, puzzles me. Dare I suggest better scripting here? The retirement home scene involving Santa is one of a number where more crisply-crafted dialogue would make its point with greater impact. But that is not Binge Culture’s way. And maybe we do empathise with them more as they fumble about not quite knowing what to say.

Nevertheless I cannot help but crave a dramatic structure that seeds the theme of war earlier in the show (radio news clips intruding on attempts to find the right track in the cassette tapes, perhaps, or comparisons with The Holy Land then and now). As it stands the segue from our singing along with John Lennon’s ‘Happy Christmas (War is Over)’ to the sound effects of war, building in intensity, comes out of the proverbial left field as a whole new topic.

The last thing we hear is Middle Eastern voices, talking urgently. I find myself wondering if a point is being made about Islamic terrorism in relation to the Christmas message of ‘peace and goodwill to all humankind’ (naively ignoring the involvement of the USA’s ‘Christian right’ in the endless promulgation of war). However the aforementioned post-show enquiry reveals the recording has been taken from news footage of fighting in Aleppo, so the language is probably Arabic. Does it matter that my mind went off at an erroneous tangent or is it valid to say better dramaturgy would have made this ending more potent?

Either way Smells Like Xmas – Binge Culture’s eighth work for theatre spaces – offers us whiffs of Christmas’s various, sometimes nefarious, aromas for us to consider as we please.  

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer