Christmas is normally the season when major theatres play it safe in an effort to net family audiences. This year is no exception. That said, the entertainment on offer from both of Dublin’s premier theatres, the Abbey and the Gate, is pretty damn near perfect holiday fare. And this, for once, I can say with the kind of complete assurance based on having seen both productions rather than trying to pre-judge either on the usual hyped up press release.

Best among both is John B. Keane’s ‘Sive’ at the Abbey. Happily, more and more critics, and academics, seem to be waking up to the worth of populist works by authors such as Keane and ‘Sive’ finds the author in peak form. His unerring grasp of the codes, rituals, and natural rhythms of language in rural Ireland is magnificently highlighted in a play that explores the morally reprehensible tradition of, basically, selling a young woman to an old farmer.

Thomasheen Sean Rua, seedily played by Johnny Murphy, is the match-maker, though in this context he could equally be called a pimp. He also is the kind of sexist sleazebag whose comments about women left many in the audience mumbling curses under their breaths and surely wondering was Ireland ever that unenlightened. It was and it still is, in ways.

And yet Anita Reeves, as the epitome of the Irish mother as monster, is equally despicable- a self-serving wretch. Pat Leavy perfectly balances out both characters, capturing the essence of maternal goodness and John Olahan is the archetypal Irish male torn between his wife and his mother.

Punctuating the play are a pair of travellers, Pat Bocock and Carthalawan whose news-sheet songs, delivered to the rhythms of a bodhran and the beat of an old man’s stick, rarely fail to elicit audience applause.

All in all, a magical evening of Irish theatre made more memorable by the wide-eyed, and inevitable tragic romanticism of the bride-to-be, as played by Dawn Bradfield. The production is marred only by the performance of Peter Hanly as the young lover, an actor whose voice is continually pitched too high and whose words die in his throat, seemingly disconnected from either a sense of emotion or intellect.

Dion Boucicault’s ‘London Assurance’, at the Gate, although hardly the best work by its author, is nonetheless a deliciously humorous romp through some of the worst excesses of London “high” society roughly a century ago. And, perhaps, to a similar extent today.

Again, the production is dominated by the performances of key actors, including Tom Hickey, Rosaleen Linehan and, in a more minor though no less studied role, Pat Kinevane as a valet.

As with ‘Sive’ the play revolves around the theme of a planned marriage between an older man and a younger woman, with both roles no more than effectively played by Alan Standford and Dariel Pertwee. As ever, with Boucicault the spoken text, though frequently purple in the extreme, is bewitchingly witty and delivered to great effect by Linehan in particular.

Recommended: I’ve yet to see Donal O’ Kelly’s ‘Hughie On The Wire’ which I previewed in this column last time round. However, if first-night reports are to believed this is both challenging and innovative theatre. It’s on at the Dublin City Arts Centre. Equally, for those who want to take on the challenge of an Irish language play, the current Project Theatre production is Mallachtai Muintire. It’s a set of plays adapted by Sean McCarthy from Padraig O Conaire’s short stories and directed by Michael Scott. Also at the Project is a “new family show” for Christmas, ‘Tyrannosaurus Twerp’ written by Maeve Ingoldsby and directed by Ronan Smith.

A two-man show, on the other hand, ‘D’Unbelievables in One Hell of a Do’ turns up at Dublin’s Tivoli theatre, featuring that crazed duo, Jon Kenny and Pat Shortt. Billy Roche’s ‘The Cavalcaders’ is still at the Peacock and the Gaiety really brings the festive season into focus with the DGOS productions of the operas ‘La Boheme/Lakme’ and ‘The Snow Queen’ starring Twink.