Not to reprise a character like Sue Timms would be a bit of a travesty. Although one could argue that not much more could have been squeezed out of this bizarre, loveable character, Dafydd James and Ben Lewis proved that this was not the case; anything new they could find, they did, and they explored it through a variety of a catchy songs.
James plays Sue once more as we are invited to her home for Christmas. Sue takes us on a journey, a journey of Christmas’ past, present and future with her own Dickensian twist. We see Sue at six years of age enjoying Christmas with her family, before her mother tragically choked to death on a bourbon biscuit. The Sue of Christmas present sits alone in her house eating a turkey vindaloo ready meal for one and opening a present from Sue, with love from Sue. The Future looks rather bleak for her. She envisages her rotting corpse, unsuspected since October, being discovered by policemen after a neighbour has reported a ‘minging’ smell from next door. All sung joyfully in her warbling falsetto voice of course.
Exploring her affinity to child stars after her own brief stint on a Welsh show when she was younger, Sue sings a song entitled ‘Whatever happened to Macaulay Culkin?’ partially set to the iconic music of Home Alone. Although not a stereotypical sign of Christmas, for many in the audience this allusion to the cult 90’s film was especially relevant and was met with certain nostalgia. Sue takes us on a tour of Cardiff during the festive period, giving us a detailed account of the time she met Father Christmas and he introduced her to a concoction of vodka and meth. The performance ends with the revelation that Sue is in fact pregnant with the second coming from God. She tells us that she was blessed in changing rooms at Debenhams and that we should all expect to help her give birth on stage. In order to do so, the audience had to create a nativity scene, resulting in an hysterical rendition of the Twelve Days of Christmas and the Nativity according to Sue.
James and Lewis brought over an hour of ridiculous entertainment packed with more original, tightly written songs, more hilarious dialogue and a large chunk of audience participation. There were jokes from the previous Sue shows indicating that both writers are aware of and indeed loyal to their audience. James gives a superb performance as the wonderful Sue, adding more depth to her character, building on existing traits introduced in the first show. It’s difficult to say whether anything else can be done with this ingenious character, but if not then this was the show to go out on. If you only see one festive show this Christmas, make it Sue’s.