from the Director – Alan Clarke

Comfort & Joy is set twenty years ago (c1995) at Christmas in the Duggan household. This should not have been very different from many Christmases for many families all over the country and yet…
Mike Harding’s comedy takes place in the home of Margaret and Martin as they prepare for a special family Christmas, “helped” by their elderly relative Goff who lives in sheltered housing but has almost moved in with them.
There will be the usual over indulgences of eating and drinking but this Christmas will be extra special. Their daughters Helen and Kathy arrive, bringing along cats, dogs and stick insects, to make the annual visit. The difference this year and the previous years is the return from Australia of Fiona, Goff’s daughter, who ran off with local boy Jimmy, her husband.
We have all had Christmases when relatives that you hardly ever see arrive at your house for the festivities but they are very different from you and there is little in common. No one receives a present that is at all appropriate or appreciated. Culinary disasters abound. Long buried resentments rear their ugly heads as the alcohol flows and tongues are loosened. And then the neighbours arrive …