Let’s face it, Christmas can be a total pain in the arse for some people. Particularly in terms of the pressure exerted on us all to be happy or, at least, to cover over the cracks in family life and play “happy families” if only for the duration of Christmas day. That premise is part of the subtext in Bernard Farrell’s new play Many Happy Returns which is the seasonal offering at the Gate theatre.
Farrell, as it transpires, is also fascinated by the spiritual malaise that is taking hold in modern Ireland, though he stresses from the start that this play is “not as dark” as his recent work, Lovers At Versailles.
“I always wanted to write a play about Christmas because everybody is under pressure to be happy,” he explains. “And when you get people trying too hard to be happy you get conflict, fights, disappointments and that’s what happens in this play. It also gave me a chance to look at the New Ireland again because it’s basically about a guy who has fallen on hard times, and there’s a pal of his who went to New Zealand and is coming back a millionaire with his ‘trophy wife’.
“The guy that stayed in Ireland wants to schmooze him in the hopes of getting a job from him, so to impress him he does things that are supposed to be important in modern Ireland – dresses up the house on the outside, puts a Santa on the roof and elves in the backyard. He even has a hot tub in the garden.”
The latter is very ‘New Ireland’ isn’t it!
“Absolutely,” laughs Bernard. “But the guy who has fallen on hard times also has a wife, and she’s trying to push him upwards socially, so there are all those pressures as well. And they all have a past that unfolds as the play progresses. But I am terribly aware of all we may be losing in this rush to embrace the New Ireland.”
Indeed, Farrell admits that “sometimes the thought is totally depressing.” One of the things he fears we may be losing is the art of true communication and true conversation which does, after all, sit at the core of Irish drama.
“It is ironic that despite the prevalence of mobile phones, computers, so few people really seem to be saying anything,” he suggests. “There is no communication. And that’s partly why I think the suicide rate is so high. Especially among young people; too many of us have just stopped listening to each other. So, although we have taken on new and often exciting values we’ve let go of a little too much in the process. And if theatre moves in that direction it then becomes part of the malaise.”
Indeed. That’s why Bernard Farrell insists that it is the job of playwrights such as himself, in plays like Many Happy Returns, “to stand back and look at the damage being done” in Modern Ireland.
“I know that doesn’t make this play sound like a comedy but because of the kind of playwright I happen to be, I can’t look at a subject like this and not see the humour,” he says. “Even in Lovers At Versailles, which was darker than a lot of my work, I had to laugh at some aspect of it all. I do have a cynical attitude to life and that expresses itself through humour. That’s been there in all my plays and it’s certainly a large part of Many Happy Returns.
“I do tend to get morose, as when I was writing Lovers At Versailles, but my saving grace is that somehow I then pull myself up by the bootlaces and manage to focus more on the humour in life. Even at a time like Christmas. But even if Many Happy Returns is funny, it certainly doesn’t dodge the downside of Christmas.”

Many Happy Returns is currently running at the Gate Theatre, Dublin