Reviewer:Alanna Maclean.

Nakkiah Lui's exuberant, biting and exhilarating play Black is the New White has hit the Playhouse for a lamentably short season, interrupted by Good Friday.

It's a wild Australian comedy of manners about race relations, except it's Christmas, and that means family tensions will throw manners out the window. Especially since lawyer Charlotte (Shari Sebbens), daughter of seasoned political activists Ray and Joan Gibson (Tony Briggs and Melodie Reynolds-Diarra) has just brought home her white boyfriend Francis (Tom Stokes) to the Gibsons' rather splendid holiday house. And Francis' parents are expected…

Shades of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner perhaps, but with many more complications and much more humour.

Retired politician Ray stands for Indigenous integrity and the need for justice, despite his addiction to Twitter and a virtual reality headset. But wife Joan is the true brains of the outfit and a matriarch for all to reckon with.

Charlotte is in love with the feckless Francis, an experimental musician living off a family trust fund. If Francis can get a foot in his mouth he will do it. She wants to go places. He is still dreaming.

Rose (Nakkiah Lui) is the other daughter, running a fashion brand, handing out sharp advice to Charlotte and married to ex-footballer (now banker) genial Sonny (Anthony Taufa) who is prone to bringing Jesus into any crisis, especially the unexpected one of his racial identity.

Francis' father Dennison (Geoff Morrell) is an aggressively offensive white right-wing pollie whose feud with fellow politician Ray goes way back and is resumed with vigour the minute Dennison realises whose house he is in. His wife Marie (Vanessa Downing), a seemingly proper partner for a politician, has a steely pragmatism and some devastating revelations that come late in the piece.

The whole thing is glued together by the cheerful and agile Narrator, (Luke Carroll), warming up the audience and not above freezing the characters while he fills in occasional bits of background.

There's nudity, there's colourful language and there's a vigorous freedom seized by a splendid cast for the characters to say what they think. But the glimpse of a damp dark eastern Australian rock wall through the upstairs window of Renee Mulder's grand set underpins the comic surface.

Lui's writing is sharp, hilarious and truthful and lets no one off. There are moments where Australian attitudes and history are examined and found very wanting. It's much more fun than David Williamson in its examination of male, female, black and white. Pack it out.