Album Review: THE BESTEST OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY EVER Splatters Your Post Holiday Blues With Booze And Is A Fun EP For The Yuletide Aftermath

Heigh Ho, dear lovely rainbow tribe, Bobby Patrick, your rainbow reviewer is back in CD-Land to offer another broken-down breakdown of a new music release. So, strap in and get ready, as Bobby goes on the record ABOUT the record.

This week's album entry in the BobbyFiles is actually a quick 4-song EP released a few weeks ago that we are only just now getting around to reviewing (Oopsie, Bobby's a Daisy). But in the case of THE BESTEST OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY EVER this delay could well have its cosmic reasons since, after hearing these four sendup songs penned by Billy Recce & Drew Larimore, we truly do feel that this music is the gin and tonic you rainbow children need for your post-holiday blues. As all that wheat and sugar rages through your system, creating highs, lows, and depression episodes, what you need now, my dearlings, is this dose of cynical holiday mania medicine Recce & Larimore have provided. Written for a full book musical about a holiday office party gone wrong, these jaundiced Joyeux Noël musical numbers are sung by a cast of exceptional singing actors: Deb Radloff, Bryan Munar, Jamen Nanthakumar, Deanna Stewart, Ryan McCurdy, the fabulous drag star, Paige Turner, and the equally fabulous drag-adjacent Mary Testa all bringing raucously funny interpretations to each tune and, so, had Little Bobby chuckling away while sipping our midafternoon margarita. THE BESTEST OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY EVER the musical premiered in a developmental online presentation in December of 2020, through The New York Theatre Barn. These four numbers from the full show offer a taste of the bitter-sweet chocolate that the creators will serve - hopefully sooner rather than later. A musical of this type offered for the season would certainly be a most welcome change from all the Ho Ho Who-Ha that gets shoved down our respective throats each year. On this lead-up-time to January 1, we find that this music will make a FAB party mix to play at any goodbye 2022 festivities.

The title track THE BESTEST OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY EVER is a darkish comedy number about the worker bees in an adult diaper factory at the office Xmas party, and all the humiliating things they must do for that Christmas bonus. With really clever lyrics and great vocal arrangements, the performances by the entire cast mentioned above, minus Testa & McCurdy, this is so funny and laced with touches of boozy freneticism, all while being very well acted and sung. Sadly, here, production has the instruments sounding a bit canned, but the voices blend well together despite the electronic tinny-ness of their backup. The doo-wap style THE SANTA FOR ME has Turner, Stewart, and Radloff lamenting just the kind of Santa that will fill their... "needs". The hilarious images conjured by their dream Santas will seem naughty and disrespectful to little Christmas angels out there, but to heck with them, since this is our post-holiday recovery and this darkly tinged paean to St. Nick gave us the giggles. THAT BITCH FACE DAVID, sung solo by McCurdy, is a love/hate song to a bitch face husband by a husband in love with his bitch face husband who is the only bitch face for him - funny lyrics with a sweet tune all about how we love our partners and we're the only ones allowed to hate them, too. The last of these four comedy anthems was saved for the inimitable Mary Testa who, with SEX MACHINE ROBOT, sings her face off about sex with her housework automaton, proving that, when you have a spoof-to-do, who ya gonna call... Mary Testa.

And so, my dear Bobby readers, it took all of 16ish minutes to banish our blues over the recent holiday bloodbath, and are we ever glad we took those minutes to listen, chuckle, chair dance a little, and enjoy. We hope that this EP is a seed that will help grow THE BESTEST CHRISTMAS PARTY EVER into a fully staged offering and bring us even more mirth next holidays... and for those laughs and the ones to come, we must give this one our solid

3 ¾ Out Of 5 Rainbows - Put this one in your collection today.

You Can Grab THE BESTEST OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY EVER On The Spotifies: HERE

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