You’ll go out of this snappily dressed Christmas show singing the costumes

By all accounts, the Players’ Guild of Hamilton had a surefire hit with last year’s “Assisted Living,” a senior citizens’ comedy that was flypaper thin but apparently a good-humoured treat.

So of course, why not plan a return trip to Pelican Roost’s, “Assisted Living” enclave for Christmas 2023? After all, it’s the retirement home where the women are hot to trot and the men have miracle pills in their pants.

Seemed like a good idea, I suppose, but I wonder if anyone actually read the script?

Turns out it’s ho-ho-hum Christmas jokes that are hard to make work. Then again, maybe the decision-makers didn’t notice on opening night, aside from a few determined boosters in the back row, there was a paucity of laughter most of the night.

Well, it’s hard to laugh at lines that aren’t all that funny even if they are pushed pretty hard. So, please tell me there isn’t an “Assisted Living” show for Easter or Thanksgiving next year.

You might be interested in

• Dec 31, 1969
• Comments

• Dec 31, 1969
• Comments

Right now, it’s Christmastime at Pelican Roost. The presents are wrapped, the trees are decorated nicely and the residents have popped their necessary pills.

We’re in the hands of Entertainment Director Naomi Lipschitz Yamamoto Murphy. She’s gussied up like an overdressed Barbie with tinsel between her ears.

This marzipan fruitcake sheds inhibitions like an ecdysiast sheds skin. And when she doffs her nifty sparkle helmet and mounts her big Harley machine, this playful mama is an outlier leader of the pack.

If only the rest of this ersatz show had the spit and polish of Maureen Dwyer’s outrageous, fun-loving Naomi, we might be able to party along all night.

But unfortunately, when Dwyer retreats to the wings to inhale some oxygen, the comedy goes with her. That’s when we realize how much Dwyer’s flounces and bounces salvage a ragbag sort of script.

Though willing, the rest of this “Assisted Living” cast never quite approaches Dwyer’s fanciful, exotic extremes.

Poor Peter Gruner is forced to repeat his unfunny lawyer routine three times when once would be quite enough.

Doug Massey works hard to make the stale macho material he’s been handed bearable, but he’s forced to push the limits.

Greg Flis tries to make the show’s relentless Viagra jokes funny, but gee whiz, there’s a limit.

And Harriet Rice, a bit light of voice, does what she can with a Second Banana routine that doesn’t offer much more than flamboyant costume changes.

That leaves perky Suzette Beaugrand, who has fun dispensing helpful Wellness Therapy ideas, right along with suspicious-looking pills in a jar that might well need a doctor’s prescription.

Behind the cast are an onstage band of three musicians that surely ought to look like they’re part of the show. Instead, they look glum.

Vocally, things are a bit rough. And what choreography there is - rudimentary at best.

Directors David Dayler and Randy Coutts needed to plump for a quicker pace that might give the show a less forced, more tongue-in-cheek sort of appeal. And there wasn’t a need for an intermission after a first act less than 40 minutes. Unfortunately, this hiatus was something the second half never really recovered from.

Dayler has always been a genius at camouflage, dressing a stage with glitz. And in that regard, he’s at his best here, heaping on the tinsel and those fake Mylar spangles, working with set designer Trevor McAnuff to give this show some sort of outrageous Christmas appeal.

And just wait for the parade of costumes, superbly over the top.

They’re classy and sassy, co-ordinated by wunderkind Ariel Rogers, with Dwyers’ outlandish festive duds set loose from the imagination of sewing machine wizard Pam Macdonald.

Producer Erin Gibson has given this retirement home Roost an appealing eye-candy look.

With so much visual heft, you just wish this attractively wrapped Christmas box had something less ho-ho-hum inside of it.