Lovers Actually at the Other Palace
If there’s anything one can say for Richard Curtis’s unkillable 2003 rom-com behemoth Love Actually (as its imminent return to UK cinemas to commemorate the Christmas season will attest, there remains much to say), it’s that it merrily has it both ways, mocking its gooey Christmas cheese cake and eating it too. Bill Nighy’s spiritually destitute old crooner grouchily asking that the gullible, materialism-crazed British public buy his festering turd of a record walks arm-in-arm with Hugh Grant’s dashing PM showing up the dastardly American Prez with his dewy-eyed recollection of all the things that make Britain great, among them David Beckham’s right foot and his left. Emma Thompson’s stricken, private cry-along to Joni Mitchell battles with Kris Marshall’s all-American sex romp for screen space. The same audience invited to tut tut at the notion that anyone could find the PM’s crush Natalie’s weight to be something worthy of mention or derision is promptly invited to laugh as a father dubs his daughter Miss Dunkin’ Donut 2003.
Two faces has Love Actually, a film that may tempt you to decry it as a crass cutesifying of all things British for the purposes of courting American love (the mere fact of Marshall’s accent scoring him instant adoration overseas is as canny a self-metaphor as Curtis’s movie could have mustered) just as it unfailingly leaves you hammered into submission with the sheer, unselfconscious bravado of its airport-running, aquatic Nativity-staging, public proposing finale. To take Love Actually in all its “yes, Christmas is stupid and so is love and aren’t they great anyways?!” glory and declare that what it really needs is to be sillier, raunchier and more self-deprecating could easily be seen as gilding a lily that doesn’t need much gilding to begin with. Thus, it’s to the credit of the team behind the new all-singing, all-dancing spoof show Lovers Actually that their venture proves as infectious as it does.
The layout is fairly straightforward: a cast of four (Martha Pothen, Ross Clifton, Holly Sumpton and Joseph Beach, each pulling at least quadruple duty across the film’s vast ensemble and showing off impressive pipes) act out fairly faithful recreations of the many plots of Love Actually, now with classic Christmas tunes thrown into the mix and cheerfully mangled. Admittedly, in the early going, there is some cause for concern regarding the ways in which the rich source text has been re-interpreted. Pop culture references are all well and good, but one joke has been afforded to the show’s adaptation of the film’s Liam Neeson/Thomas Brodie Sangster story – that being to transform the Neeson of the film into the growling bone-breaker of Taken, barking orders to whip his stepson into shape – and this joke (and others)’s dependence on our familiarity with the film’s famous faces wears thin. When Alan Rickman’s pitiful adulterer strides out in the wig of a certain Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, fear sets in that a spoof of Love Actually may have few tools at its disposal save shouting out the elephant in every celebrity-bedecked room.
Then, a burst of inspiration strikes when it comes time to enact the movie set flirtations of sex scene body doubles Judy and John. As the ever-game cast mutilates the Christmas songbook (ah, the proud stupidity of belting “In the cheek’s mid-sphiiiiiinnnnccctteeerrr” to the tune of a certain sung-through Christina Rosetti poem), Lovers Actually fully locks into the freewheeling, anything for a laugh spirit that will power it to genuine comic heights over the course of its punchy 100 minutes, its confidence gathering to the point that the gaffes have almost as much charm as the hits.
Redundant an observation as it may be, the fact that writers Neil Hurst and Jodie Prenger clearly love Love Actually for everything it is and fails to be is a considerable factor. Queer readings have never been far from Nighy’s late-in-the-game declaration of love for his faithful, long-suffering manager, or Mark’s not at all creepy fixation on the marriage of Juliet and Peter (a notion the film itself entertains before chickening out), but it’s satisfying all the same to see them realised with such enthusiastically filthy gusto. Additionally, the idea of Natalie acquiring more agency in her fairytale will they, won’t they with the Prime Minister has been considered, but few would envision it in the form of the onstage Natalie belting into a dildo while laying waste to the PM’s office (with time for a meta jab at the movie’s tone deafness on the subject of the character’s appearance).
It’s enough good-natured silliness to make you wish the movie’s bummer Laura Linney story had made the cut (if one may suggest some rejigged Christmas lyrics: “This is the depressing part of the movie (ba dim), that gets you to channel surf when it’s on TV (ba dum)!”). Still, just as important as the clear affection for all things Love Actually is the engagement of an intimately scaled, enthralled crowd. While the show’s gags are as suitably hit-and-miss as most any spoof show’s are bound to be, no bigger laugh is inspired all night than when one of the cast members breaks into laughter from the sheer intensity of their own performance. In this moment, theatregoers and those onstage are collaborators in the same shared spirit, and one imagines Lovers Actually would suffer greatly from a less receptive audience. On this night, however, Lovers Actually is a winner. It may even make you that little bit more open to the idea of sitting down to the film with relatives yet again.
Ultimately, highly committed performances, a swiftly shape-shifting set (courtesy of designer Louie Whitemore, with additional credit due to choreographer Kim Healey and director Alex Jackson), and so much pure, high-energy stupidity add up to a thoroughly likeable spoof that hits many of its marks without overstaying its welcome. It even takes the time to punch upwards at the grotesques of contemporary American and British politics without getting off track (“Nigel Farage? Well, someone must love him. Probably”), another sign of a show with its goofy heart set firmly in the right place.
Thomas Messner
Photos: Pamela Raith
Lovers Actually is at the Other Palace from 27th November 2025 until 3rd January 2026. For further information or to book, visit the theatre’s website here.
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