The Grand Life

The Run Up To Christmas

Every year, for most of December, the Grand Almond Hotel has been putting on a nightly Nativity play for the locals and guests to enjoy, and at the end, Father Christmas comes out and gives all the kids in the audience a present. It's always very popular, and the kids get into it. It's like a religious pantomime, with everyone yelling out at what the shepherds say, and laughing at the Wise Men's jokes.

This year, due to budget cuts, there wasn't enough money to hire all the actors that we normally have. So, we had only two Wise Men, and Mary was a single mother, because we couldn't afford to have a Joseph. But the performances went on anyway.

While the Wise Men were doing their bit, all I could hear in the audience were the children asking their parents where the third one was.

No-one seemed to mind about Mary being on her own. Is this a sign of modern family structures these days?

The shepherds were the comic relief. The two actors were Shakespearean actors that spoke very posh, but as soon as they were on stage they spoke in a thick Cornish accent. It was quite funny to hear. Their job was to get the kids to yell stuff at them. So, for example, they would start by shouting "Do you know what we are?", and the kids would yell back "Shepherds!". One performance, however, when they asked this, one kid yelled back "Wankers!".

Another thing they would do would get words and names wrong, and get the audience to yell out the right word. SO they'd say that the angel was called Gerald, or Garfield, or Graham, and the kids would yell back Gabriel. My favourite line was that they'd say that baby Jesus was lying in a minger. Naughty chuckles from the parents would echo round the hall at this point.

It was all good fun, and I look forward to seeing how many actors we can afford next year.