Broken Legs Blog

The Lace Market Theatre’s final production of 2025 is Chris Bush’s “The Last Noel”, a festive tale of family and tradition. In the intimate setting of the Lace Market’s studio theatre, we are treated to three stories from three generations of the same family, passing the time whilst waiting for the rest of their family to arrive for a Christmas feast. The show is immediately immersive, with Leslie Brown’s matriarchal Alice offering round mulled wine and reading Christmas cracker jokes, whilst her son Mike (Michael Radford) enlists audience members to help him decorate the Christmas tree, and make paper chains. It immediately feels warm and comforting, and everyone will find something to relate to from memories of their own family Christmases.

Alice and Mike are joined by granddaughter Tess (Ezra Roberts), the three generations waiting for Mike’s sister/Tess’s mother to arrive from the hospital, where she is a doctor. The three cast members are incredibly relaxed with each other – there’s a lot of friendly teasing, sarcastic interruptions and gentle encouragement that one would expect from three close family members. Under Laurie Owen’s direction, the play smoothly transitions between comedic and more heartfelt moments, as each of the cast take turns in the spotlight, telling a story of Christmas past.

Mike’s story is the most engaging, partly due to it being the funniest, but also down to Radford’s enthusiasm, charisma and sheer likeability. He delivers punchlines perfectly, and throws in a little extra sass as he performs musical numbers complete with jazz hands. He tells the story of his brother-in-law’s stag do, reworking the lyrics to ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ into ‘The Twelve Hours of Stag Do’, in the comedic highlight of the show. The story offers a commentary on his relationship with his sister, which is really the heart of this production – the unseen sister/daughter/mother is the main character here, and every tale we hear revolves around her.

More moving is Tess’s tale of her first Christmas home from uni, a night spent down the pub with her mates, that she partly regrets because she didn’t spend it with her mum. Delivered as a poem in the style of ‘The Night Before Christmas’, there are many funny rhymes to enjoy here, and Roberts is able to create a character that is clearly in emotional distress, although the reasons for that distress are kept from us until a reveal towards the end of the show. Roberts rushes through some of the poetry a little too quickly, not allowing the various rhyming couplets to properly land before storming into the next one, but it is reminiscent of a character who has too many thoughts rushing through their head, too many emotions to allow them to properly articulate every single one before they are hit by the next.

Brown has potentially the hardest role, delivering a tale that is mostly devoid of humour, a story of a lonely lighthouse keeper, told in the style of a Christmas ghost story, filled with vivid imagery and beautiful description. The lighthouse keeper is waiting for her husband to arrive by boat; a storm is raging outside, the clouds are threatening snow. It is a captivating tale, but seemingly at odds with the comedic elements of the rest of the piece, which can take a little adjusting to. Thankfully Brown is able to deliver it all superbly, capturing our imaginations with her storytelling, even if the various interjections from Mike and Tess keep disrupting her flow. The story she tells not only allows us insight to Tess’s childhood memories, but also carefully mirrors Alice waiting for the arrival of her daughter.

The play is supported by incidental music from Sam Marshall, who takes requests for different Christmas carols as the audience file in. Marshall provides the music for various numbers throughout, used as an opportunity to show us the character’s true feelings that they don’t necessarily want to show in front of their family members.

The show ends with a twist that is perhaps a little obvious (especially given the play’s title), but is moving nonetheless. This is a show that will leave everyone reminiscing about their own past Christmases, a play about reflection and tradition, which makes for a welcoming introspective piece which feels different to most other plays you would see at this time of year. A heartfelt piece of theatre, that will have you laughing along with the actors, before it all takes a more melancholic turn. Superb stuff to warm you up on these cold winter nights.

Tom Morley, December 2025