Cardiff’s New Theatre played host to Wynyard Browne’s touring festive favourite, The Holly and the Ivy, and an audience that had successfully avoided the city’s numerous other Christmas attractions showed due respect and appreciation.

A stellar cast demonstrated that this insightfully written play has indeed stood the test of time.

We started off gently in a Norfolk vicarage, where Reverend Martin Gregory and his youngest daughter Jenny are making preparations to welcome the rest of the family for Christmas.

The goose is being prepared, the decorations are being hung and thanks to two very insightful performances by Stuart McGugan and Charlotte Hunter, we gradually start to see the cracks appearing in this apparently idyllic scene.

Themes of self-sacrifice, honesty, deceit and eventually forgiveness and understanding come to the fore as the other characters filter in for their festive visit.

Two elderly aunts, played superbly by Sally Sanders and Hildegard Neil provide the humour and eventually common-sense, but it is with the arrival of siblings Dean Smith as Mick and Corinne Wicks as the troubled Margaret that the tone of the play alters, and tension and heartbreak take over as the main themes.

Alan Leith as family friend Richard, and Tom Butcher as dour Scot, Tom Butcher provide the evidence that there is life outside the vicarage.

Poignant, moving and extremely well-observed, this was a heart-warming dose of nostalgia, with family values placed firmly at the fore.

The play runs until Saturday.