Yet Another Partridge in a Pear Tree is an audio play written by Brian Sibley and performed by Penelope Keith, subtitled as "cautionary tale for Christmas showing that it is better to give than to receive". It serves as a parodic deconstruction of the English Christmas carol The Twelve Days of Christmas, and is told through a series of letters written by Cynthia Bracegirdle, the hypothetical recipient of the gifts mentioned in the song, to her boyfriend who sent them. Suffice to say that the mood and tone of the letters gradually changes for the worse throughout as Miss Bracegirdle's house descends into mayhem.
As implied by its title, the play interprets the cumulative lyrics of the song literally, meaning that on each day, the new present is accompanied by yet another copy of all the presents from the previous day, making for a total of 364 gifts over the course of the 12 days (12 [12x1] drummers drumming, 22 [11x2] pipers piping, 30 [10x3] lords a-leaping, 36 [9x4] ladies dancing, 40 [8x5] maids a-milking, 42 [7x6] swans a-swimming, and a reverse of those equations for the six remaining gifts.)
Yet Another Partridge in a Pear Tree can be heard here,
and read on Brian Sibley's website here.
Tropes featured include:
- Big Eater: The milkmaids, according to Cynthia: "...you wouldn't believe how much they eat."
- Christmas Special: This program has been played yearly on the radio in various parts of the world.
- Cloudcuckoolander: At least some of the dancing ladies are implied to be this, as one of them is described by Cynthia as seeming to be "working out a somewhat extraordinary routine involving several doves and a goose!"
- Cranky Landlord: Cynthia's landlord is implied to be by the eleventh day, with very good reason. She mentions that he has taken an eviction order against her, as he "claims, somewhat surprisingly, that the terms of my lease do not cover utilisation of the premises as a menagerie, dancing school, smallholding or annex of the House of Lords."
- Deadpan Snarker: Cynthia Bracegirdle, constantly. Her snark starts off pleasantly enough ("Actually, the birdie isn't wildly attractive, but the pear tree should be lovely - when pears are in season again.") but develops into angry and biting jabs later on ("For your information, I have now reached the end of my tether - which is more than can be said for those damn cows of yours!")
- The Dreaded "Thank You" Letter: Completely averted. Cynthia has no trouble writing a letter acknowledging each new shipment of gifts as it comes. The first few are thank-you letters, but the later ones are very much not.
- Driven to Suicide: On the twelfth day, Miss Bracegirdle takes her own life by travelling to Eastbourne and jumping off the top of Beachy Head. Also, one of the partridges drowns themselves in a milk pail, and this gets a reference later when the lawyer tells Algernon that he will be receiving eleven partridges and twelve pear trees instead of twelve of each.
- Human Traffickers: Implied. How exactly would one "buy" milkmaids, dancing ladies, leaping lords, pipers and drummers and send them to someone as a gift?
- Inheritance Backlash: Cynthia pulls this on Algernon at the end of the story. Before killing herself, she wills all 364 of his unwanted gifts back to him.
- Jerkass: Algernon is all but shown to be one, the way he continues to relentlessly send Cynthia unwanted gifts after she has asked him many times to stop. The fact that she thanks him for setting her straight about the curtain rings shows that he definitely is receiving all her letters, but is apparently ignoring them.
- Last-Name Basis: Cynthia Bracegirdle transitions from First-Name Basis to Full-Name Basis to this - both for herself and for Algernon Fotherington-Smythe - between days five and eight, signifying the disappearance of her affection for him as he continues to plague her with more and more gifts. She signs her letters off, serially, as "Cynthia", "Cynthia B", "Cynthia Bracegirdle", "Miss Cynthia Bracegirdle", "Miss C Bracegirdle", "C Bracegirdle (Miss)", and finally "C B".
- Laughing Mad: In the radio play, near the end of the eleventh day, Cynthia breaks out into hysterical laughter after signing her letter.
- The Law Firm of Pun, Pun, and Wordplay: Cynthia's lawyer is from the firm of Graball, Twister and Fleecem (based in Suet-under-Writ).
- Mad Love: A probable interpretation of Algernon's actions. In any case, it certainly becomes this as Cynthia quickly grows to hate his guts and he keeps on sending the unwanted gifts.
- Perpetual Moult: On day seven, Cynthia bemoans how messy the moulting partridges are.
- The Plague: In her tenth letter, Cynthia mentions that "the recent outbreaks of crop-blight, fowl-pest and foot-and-mouth disease have now reached epidemic proportions".
- Selective Obliviousness: Algernon stubbornly continues plaguing Cynthia with mountains of gifts of birds, cows, and people, ignoring her repeated (and increasingly angry) requests to stop. He also disregards her revelation, early on, that she is allergic to eggs.
- Strongly Worded Letter: All of Cynthia's letters from about day 7 or 8 onwards are strongly worded letters to increasing degrees, but true to the trope, they have absolutely zero effect on Algernon Fotherington-Smythe's pattern of sending her daily shipments of new gifts. As her exasperation increases, she gradually dispenses with all attempts at politeness, with the salutations of her final six letters reading, respectively, "Dear Algernon Fotherington-Smythe", "Dear Mr Fotherington-Smythe", "Mr Fotherington-Smythe", "Mr Smythe", "Unspeakable wretch", and "Cretinous toad".
- Swans A-Swimming: Averted. Cynthia finds it most unpleasant to have to accomodate all of the swans in her bathtub.
- Trash of the Titans: Due to no fault of her own, Cynthia's house becomes filled with this over the course of the twelve days - not only with all Algernon's gifts of birds, livestock and people, but also with their very messy by-products (feathers, poop, rancid milk etc.)
- Unusual Euphemism: On day ten, Cynthia deduces from the antics she witnessed behind the pear-tree that "several of the milkmaids should soon find themselves in, what polite society calls, an interesting condition."
- Unwanted Gift Plot: An unwanted 364 gifts, to be precise. Subverted, however, because Miss Bracegirdle soon stops feeling obliged to express appreciation as the gifts keep coming.
- We Used to Be Friends: The story starts with Cynthia expressing "all my love - forever" to her very dearest Algy. By her final letter, "C B" absolutely loathes the cretinous toad.
