I don’t think any­one will dis­agree with me that it’s been one hell of a year, and Christ­mas is descend­ing on us fast.  So it seemed com­plete­ly appro­pri­ate to be watch­ing a show about peo­ple who’ve had a hell of a year, too, drawn togeth­er at Christ­mas.

Annie and Will have grav­i­tat­ed back to the home they grew up in, occu­pied by their young now-wid­owed step­moth­er, look­ing for sanc­tu­ary, famil­iar­i­ty, or maybe just some­where to stay after the wheels have fall­en off their respec­tive lives.  Mean­while, Car­ol, their step­mum, is try­ing to fig­ure out life with­out her hus­band, and cre­ate some kind of nor­mal­cy, part­ly by lean­ing on Paul, who’s become a months-long house­guest.

As they awk­ward­ly nav­i­gate new and old rela­tion­ships in the two days lead­ing up to Christ­mas, some pret­ty big truths emerge, and must be dealt with, and frankly, these aren’t the most emo­tion­al­ly capa­ble peo­ple.

Except maybe Paul, who is wise in a kind of idiot savant  way.  He’s some­how charm­ing, com­plete­ly clue­less, and dri­ves Annie ini­tial­ly, and Will more endur­ing­ly, nuts with his inva­sive ques­tions and tact­less obser­va­tions.   This is obvi­ous­ly not helped by the fact that he appar­ent­ly now lives in the home they see as theirs.

James Cain is an excel­lent Paul, gan­g­ly and noisy but gen­er­ous to a fault.  Cain also gen­er­ous­ly gives focus to the oth­er actors; a del­i­cate bal­ance to achieve when your char­ac­ter is the car­toony com­ic one.  Dryw McArthur is far too like musi­cians I have known (or what­ev­er),  with self-doubt and self-fla­gel­la­tion under the brava­do, nev­er feel­ing they’re good enough.   Kate John­stone’s Annie is recog­nis­able, too, the girl who has blown her poten­tial and is try­ing to fig­ure out what that leaves her (just @me next time, ffs).  And Tabatha Pini-Hall as Car­ol is incred­i­bly sweet and frag­ile, try­ing to be a step­mum and a teacher, but also just being a girl in her 20s who’s griev­ing and does­n’t have the ener­gy for any­one else.

It was more emo­tion­al than I expect­ed, and more fun­ny, and I don’t know why as I’ve found pre­vi­ous shows Cas­san­dra Tse has direct­ed to be con­sis­tent­ly both of those things.   She choos­es sto­ries about peo­ple who are, not bro­ken, or dis­en­fran­chised, but def­i­nite­ly out of their depth.…  and she leads them back to sta­ble ground with a deft touch and a wry appre­ci­a­tion of the absurd.

I very much enjoyed Home­made Take­aways.   It will be on for a fur­ther 8 nights after today, and I rather think it’s a bet­ter option to Hall­mark Christ­mas movies, if you’re look­ing for a lit­tle sea­son­al enter­tain­ment of an evening.  Book at Bats.  I’m real­ly glad Wham­aged­don has­n’t start­ed yet.  Rude, guys.