As they rehearse for this year’s Nativity plays, Laura Davis meets the stars who have very different ideas about the Greatest Story Ever Told

WITH a plot featuring more twists and turns than last year’s Christmas lights, strong central characters and not forgetting a dastardly villain, it’s easy to see why the Christian Nativity is dubbed “the greatest story ever told”.

And, from missing costumes to a tearful Mary, behind every school or church performance are plenty of other good tales to share.

Here are just a few from this year . . .

‘THE Three Wise Men come and they bring gold and some oily stuff,” says six-year-old Ashley Waugh confidently.

“No, it’s gold, myrrh and Frankenstein,” interjects Rachel Jones, 7, a pupil at Matthew Arnold School, in Dingle.

Mason Connelly has the final word on the subject. “No, Frankenstein is what you dress up as at Halloween,” he says, as though it is on a par with dressing as Joseph for Christmas.

Rachel’s original role was to play the wood block at the moment when Mary and Joseph knocked on the door of the inn, so she is particularly pleased to now be the one doing the knocking.

“The teacher asked her to be Mary,” explains Mason, 6. “Some of the girls had their hands up to be Joseph, but I was the only boy so she asked me to be him.”

Ashley is the innkeeper – an important part, the children explain, especially as she is the one who has to announce “drinks are on the house” as the audience gets to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus.

“I think the stable would be smelly,” she announces, clutching tight to the candlestick – her one prop in the play.

Rachel thinks a manger would be a cosy place to sleep on Christmas Eve: “We could sleep on the hay and make a pillow out of it.”

“We would be the first ones to wake up in the morning,” adds Mason, “because it would be dead noisy from all the animals. The cockerel would be going ‘cock-a-doodle-do!’.”