Writer: Rachel Price
Director: Paul Birch
This zany one hour exploration of the Nativity story aimed particularly at the young certainly lives up to Riding Lights’ avowed policy of using the Christian faith to create entertaining performances. Jared More is the proprietor of the Bethlehem Inn and Spa and has received intimation that a “very special guest” will show up that night: it’s a family legend that this will happen when a star appears – and it has. He thinks this guest will be immediately obvious and repeats his qualities constantly. In the course of the play a Roman soldier, a shepherd, a wise man and a carpenter all show up looking for rooms. The carpenter (who has a pregnant wife and has journeyed from Nazareth) is accommodated in the Cow Shed (or Luxury Glamping Pod) in exchange for work on the inn’s rickety fabric while his donkey ranges freely through the inn.
Now all of these parts, except the donkey, are played by Katie Coen in addition to the inn’s dogsbody and assorted guests who bob out constantly from the doors and windows of the attractively lop-sided set by Caitlin Mawhinney who is also responsible for Coen’s constant costume changes. The whole thing moves at lightning pace through farcical situations and, after the proprietor is converted to the fact that the very special guest is being born in the Cow Shed, the briefly serious tone is dissipated by the Roman soldier’s attempt to seize the baby which ends in a farcical chase with the donkey to the fore.
More offers a constant reminder of John Cleese in Fawlty Towers, existing in a state of permanent fury and confusion until converted by the birth of Jesus, while Coen runs through a series of wild impersonations and accents. Both go over the top with accomplished relish and make the most of Patrick Burbridge’s songs. However, stealing the show is Chompy the donkey, a puppet (by Adele Birkinshaw) who appears in assorted windows and makes a meal of More’s and the Roman soldier’s trousers and the hotel’s booking diary. A word, too, for the member of the audience who was enlisted to free the proprietor from a perilous perch halfway through a window and ended up miming the very special guest’s many qualities.
Rachel Price’s script eschews subtlety in favour of opening up daft situations and Paul Birch directs at high speed. This, coupled with the actors’ capacity for farce, leads to a production which is equal fun for adults and children.
Runs until 24 December 2025.
