By Robert Bain

Christmas entertainment can be pretty iffy. There are so many people to please and boxes to tick that the music, TV and theatre we’re served up at this “most wonderful time of the year” often ends up either as dull as a brussels sprout or as annoying as a coffee mug that plays “Jingle Bells”. Anthony Neilson and his crew have done well then, in just six months, to come up with a new play that knocks the stockings of most festive offerings.

God in Ruins was commissioned by the RSC and developed by Neilson with a cast of eleven male actors from the RSC’s ensemble. Its slightly odd form reflects the way it came about – by a bunch of blokes messing around for a while. It’s something of a hodgepodge, but it works rather well.

The starting point is A Christmas Carol, and the play begins where Dickens left off, with Bob Cratchit trying to avoid the reformed Scrooge, who has become unbearably jolly. We are then introduced to a modern-day Scrooge in the shape of Brian (played by Brian Doherty – one of several actors using his real first name), an alcoholic whose ex-wife won’t let him see his daughter on Christmas Eve.

From this point on the scenes change quickly and it’s not always totally clear if what we’re seeing is supposed to be real, a dream, a play within a play… Not that it ever matters because the whole thing is so much fun, and the overarching themes hold it all together just enough. With the help of a tiresomely upbeat Scrooge, Brian embarks on a bizarre journey to find his daughter and redeem himself, revisiting memories and confronting ghosts, Christmas Carol-style.

The play’s title makes it sound a lot grander than it is. There’s a lot of silliness here, but it’s top class silliness executed by true professionals. The swearing is deployed liberally but expertly, and there are some great lines as Scrooge, played brilliantly by Sean Kearns, struggles to master modern English. Another running gag is the list of reality TV programmes that Brian has produced, including Chimp Monastery – memorably described as “hilarious, but you learn stuff too”.

Appropriately in a play about lonely men at Christmas, the internet features quite heavily, and through some imaginative devices, is portrayed to eerily good effect.

God in Ruins does occasionally feel like a series of comedy skits. If anything, Neilson and his troupe have come up with too many good ideas and struggled to squeeze them into a play. But although the examination of this deeply messed-up man’s life is largely played for laughs, there is a story here with at least a bit of depth, and some quite unsettling moments. Doherty’s performance appears at first to be little more than a good impression of Dylan Moran in Black Books, but the more the play goes on, the further he ventures beyond the slurring, swearing and stumbling.

The play touches on a variety of very unfestive topics (alcoholism, homelessness, death, disability, divorce, depression, internet perverts) with varying degrees of respect. Neilson frequently deploys the old trick of channelling the really offensive jokes through his self-loathing central character, giving us all the comfortable excuse that he’s the one we’re really laughing at. But even when things are handled in bad taste, they are at least handled with honesty.

Finally, God in Ruins is a play that manages to look modern life unflinchingly in the eye, see how ugly it is, and still wish it a merry Christmas.

God in Ruins continues at the Soho Theatre until January 5; Tickets £10 – £20.