""There are many people for whom Christmas comes attended by the terrors of isolation, loneliness and enforced camaraderie. For the sociable it is a time for the mad scramble to organise as many encounters as possible lest we drop points in the stakes of popularity. With the innate laziness which has become part of the British heritage Christmas now seems to go on endlessly, engulfing New Year and more monstrous clambering on to the wagon of joyless mirth.
Christmas was never a festival I would particularly look forward to and those without families, separated, bereaved or just congenitally introverted find the spotlight of Christmas exposes a false sense of worth or an exaggerated sense of worthlessness as the meagre cards are counted. Harry is one of those whom the buffets of the world has left stranded on a barren shore and he is dealing with it for the last time. But it is an amalgam of many of us.
I played this play at the Donmar in 1985/6 and no play I have done received so many responses from people who found in Harry's dilemma and, may I say agony, echoes in their own lives."
