A comedy by Jean-Pierre Martinez
English translation by the author
9, 10 or 11 characters (males and/or females)
For 9 actors: 5M/4F or 5M/5F
For 10 actors: 6M/4F or 5M/5F or 4M/6F
For 11 actors: 7M/4F or 6M/5F or 5M/6F or 4M/7F
Kimberley inherits her grandmother’s renowned cookie recipe. On Christmas Eve, alongside her best friend Jennifer, Kimberley is on the verge of launching a tearoom at the base of the building where Granny Maggie lived. This endeavour is deeply meaningful to her, and she has poured all her savings into it. However, a ruthless real estate developer is determined to acquire her shop, demolish the building, and replace it with a luxury residence. Can Kimberley overcome these challenges and finally find love? A true Christmas movie plot… but worse.
This text is available to read for free. However, an authorisation is required from the author prior to any public performance, whether by professional or amateur companies. To get in touch with Jean-Pierre Martinez and ask an authorisation to represent one of his works CONTACT FORM
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The song from the play. Lyrics and music Jean-Pierre Martinez. This song may be used as part of a stage production, simple request to the author and without any additional fees. The audio file is available upon request, subject to prior authorization from the author for the use of the play’s text.
Blowing Up the Christmas TV-Movie Stereotypes from Within
In Beauconville, Kimberley turns the flat she inherited from her grandmother into a tearoom where she plans to sell Mamy Yoyo’s famous cookies. Everything seems perfectly set up for a classic Christmas TV movie: a small business under threat, a ruthless property developer, a disappointing fiancé and the return of an old school friend who has grown into a charming architect. But the romantic plot quickly goes off the rails: accidental drug trafficking, sabotage, betrayal, family secrets and suspicions of murder send the fairy tale spiralling into an increasingly extravagant crime comedy.
The play draws much of its comic force from the collision between the genre’s reassuring conventions and the sheer triviality of what actually happens. The characters are instantly recognisable archetypes, providential coincidences pile up, and every twist arrives with the artificial inevitability of a ready-made script. Yet these clichés are systematically contaminated by black humour, vulgarity, sexual innuendo and absurdity. The kindly grandmother becomes a murder victim, the family cookies turn into space cakes, and the Christmas miracle ultimately takes the form of a ghost under a sheet.
Beneath the parody lies a broader satire. The little tearoom has to resist property speculation and the arrival of a “Starfucks”, while the bank, the accountant and the developer’s political connections turn out to be the real powers driving the story. Even the values traditionally celebrated by Christmas TV movies — family, love and personal fulfilment — are tainted by self-interest, lies and social vanity. Kimberley’s entrepreneurial dream therefore seems less threatened by fate than by a system in which everything can be bought, falsified or destroyed.
The writing fully embraces its theatricality: a confectionery-box set, constant entrances and exits, fast-paced dialogue, a comic police duo, parody slow motion, deliberately crude special effects and a ghostly apparition all offer rich opportunities for performance. Flexible casting encourages a genuine ensemble dynamic, but the success of the production depends above all on maintaining a precise balance between sincere romantic sentiment and ironic distance. By literally blowing up the set at the very moment when happiness is supposed to triumph, Comme un téléfilm de Noël… en pire ! pushes the logic of the genre all the way to its gleeful collapse.