Theatre-goer beware! This review contains plot details.

As ever, there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. Festen, or ‘Celebration’, is set at the sixtieth birthday party of the patriarch of a large, wealthy family. Helge Klingenfeldt-Hansen (Ben Kavanagh) is surrounded by his grown-up children and their families, who sing, clap and (in true Danish fashion) make speech after speech. Within the familiar social rituals of glass-clinking and toasting, however, is horror and disruption.

In keeping with tradition, Helge’s eldest son Christian (Will Attenborough) is called on to deliver a toast to his father. The speech keeps within the conventional frame of a birthday tribute, beginning with the clink on his wine-glass and ending with a skol to his father. But rather than the expected well-wishing, Christian accuses his father of incest, childhood molestation and the recent death of his sister Linda. The sensational accusations allow an exploration of a more pervasive evil: inertia and complicity when faced with abuse.

More shocking than Christian’s claims is the manner in which the dinner guests revert to normality after each successive revelation. A memorable dissipation of tension is offered by the grandfather (an unrecognizably made-up Theo Hughes-Morgan), who diverts the table with a doddering recollection of a gem of romantic advice he once bestowed on an adolescent Helge, involving swimming trunks and the transforming addition of a potato. Each successive revelation of abuse and deceit stuns the table only momentarily: sing-alongs, dancing and yet more speeches soon cover the discomfort.

Festen was adapted for stage by David Eldridge from Thomas Vinterberg’s 1998 film. Part of the ‘Dogme 95’ group of young Danish film makers, Vinterberg used a handheld camera in a ‘natural’ setting and avoided Hollywoodic post-production editing. The transition from cinematic naturalism to highly theatrical production manages to retain Festen’s uncomfortable intimacy, and allows some brilliant effects of staging and layering. The minimalist set and use of the full cavernous depth of the ADC stage are a resonant setting for the action, and the sound and lighting, though a long way from the original aesthetic of the film, are slick and effective.

The cast is uniformly strong. Kavanagh as Helge changes from a calmly manipulative tyrant to a diminished, pitiable father. His wife Else (Liana Grant) acts with what seems to be quiet dignity but turns out to be a fearful coldness and denial when she discredits her son in the name of protecting her husband. The family’s readiness to ignore years of abuse, and Christian’s accusations, continues in their easy obliviousness to the disgraced Helge.

Responding articulately to Christian’s revelations is impossible: the family have no middle ground between denials and laughter on the one hand and silence and brawling on the other. Tasked with presiding over the ever-darker speeches, the poor toast-master can only joke about his tough luck being assigned this particular party. 

The family’s difficulty in reacting to the drama is shared by the audience. Modern tragedy is never too far from farce, and shock and tension are frequently relieved by laughter. And not uncomfortable, self-conscious laughter - genuine amusement, which is disconcerting when occasioned by such a portrait of the jovial dismissal of pain.