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Moseley Chimes
February 2008
The Children’s nativity play was performed as part of the service on Sunday 21 December. It was led by directors Debbie Barwell and Christine Abbott. Debbie had previous experience of directing a Christmas play and so knew just how hard it could be. Chris, the newly appointed children’s group co-ordinator, was still under the illusion that it was possible to keep a group of twenty highly excitable young children under control for any length of time, but she soon learned.
The play this year was based on the traditional nativity story, seen through the eyes of three stars, and was written by myself. The cast worked well learning their lines, and in general things were running smoothly. However, the day before the performance, in the final dress rehearsal, disaster struck! Katherine Barwell, one of the three main roles and certainly one of the best speakers in the cast, fell ill. It was down to Daisy Lloyd to save the day and, despite there being less than 24 hours until the performance, she willingly took on Katherine’s role and joined Mollie McCormick and Sienna Overduin as a star. This was followed by a major cast change-around, resulting in the directors finding themselves with only two wise men on the Sunday morning! Thanks must go to Alice Handy who agreed to step in and play the role after only being asked five minutes before the service was due to start.
While the speaking cast were excellent, the Christmas Nativity would not be complete without the younger children, who stole the show with their amazing rendition of ‘The Wheels on the Bus – Nativity Version’.
Taking into account the changes made at very short notice, the cast did very well. Every member of the congregation who was there agreed that it was a brilliant performance by everyone involved, and as a bonus, the audience heard and understood most of the jokes. By the way, in case you were wondering, ‘Baa baa black sheep’ was supposed to be sung out of tune.