This is a show about all the potential catastrophes wrapped up in the traditions of Christmas - creepy and offensive relatives, cooking mishaps, overbearing parents, last-minute shopping, travel woes, and the list goes on. Even the most festive among us would be hard-pressed to recall a Christmas free of stress, and for countless others, it’s a hectic, challenging and intermittently joyous time.

Nutcracker Productions, a quartet of Oxford Imps alums, have teamed up to deliver a bitingly funny and festive show taking aim at all of the above. While this is primarily an evening of improv, the cast pulls out all the stops with a wide smattering of props, costumes (Father Christmas is dressed in a full beard and suit), two prepared songs and a monologue to set the scene to boot.

It was performed last night at the cheerful Tap Social in Botley (a converted warehouse-turned-pub/brewery that produces charitable beer, and aesthetically somehow manages to be both airy and cosy) and will be again (with an entirely different plot of course, as is the nature of improv) at The Old Fire Station on December 15th.

Santa narrates from above - and indeed, kicks off the show by lamenting, flabbergasted, that some people may not actually enjoy Christmas after all, and teases tales of Christmas misfortune out of the audience. Santa then directed us all to look under our seats. There, we found individual Christmas cards, on which we were instructed to write down a Christmas wish.

Our suggestions, collected and drawn out of a hat, formed the basis for the ensuing show, which featured a gormless perpetual student falling behind on his PhD, a loathsome uncle, a meddling and boozy mother, and a girlfriend whose main character trait is that she looks uncannily like the mother, an ongoing Oedipus gag, which becomes that takes over the whole production, somewhat tiringly.

This is a group of talented performers, who take aim at everything from class politics to how infantilizing it is to go home for the holidays and commit to their characters diligently. There’s an acerbic tint to the comedy, and the show has the dual appeal of speaking to those already irritated or overwhelmed at the thought of going home for the holidays, and the ample festive dressings to charm those in the spirit of the season.

It might make for uncomfortable viewing depending on how laidback your family is (or indeed, isn’t), but with a group of friends, it’s a funny and free-spirited evening of Christmas cheer.

You can find out more about the group's December 15th show here, and read our interview with them about their creative process here.