Writing the Christmas show

Last year's Christmas show, 'Three Elves, A Snowman And A Funeral' was my fourth festive show in four years and was a sell-out success in the tiny cellar of our spiritual home, CB2 in Cambridge. As daft as this may sound though, the thing I didn't like about it was the fact that it all went a bit too smoothly...if anything, I came away from that lovely little show feeling a bit flat. In our first Christmas show, 'On The 12th Day Of Alex' (which I have to admit is still my most favourite thing I've written) we were driven by fear - it was put together at such short notice and wasn't even intended for a public performance initially, in the second year for 'A Fairytale Of Bar Hill' (quite happy with this script, although it dipped a bit in the middle) we were missing many audience members due to excessive snow in the UK, the third year when we did 'Santa Claus And The Unfortunate Allegations' (poor script, I apologise to anyone who came to see it - possibly the worst thing I've ever written) one of our leading actors - Kev, was stranded in Amsterdam on the day of the first performance so I ended up taking the roles of Jesus and Cliff Richard...it's these kind of crisis' that help bring a show together, it creates a new energy. Last year, we just all knew what we were doing, and everyone enjoyed it, and I just drove home from the final performance knowing I was supposed to be happy but...

Not that you can create a major problem of course, that would just be daft, but somehow I needed to feel excited about this year's Christmas production - it can't just be another Paul Richards Christmas script, things were in danger of getting stale. It is different this year because for the first time we're working under a production name, Fat Fox Productions, and my co-founder, Izzy, probably wouldn't let a rubbish script slip through the net. I very much doubt that if I turned up to the rehearsal with, 'Santa Claus And The Unfortunate Allegations' as the script for this year's show it would have actually happened. My initial idea in our post-fringe chat at the end of August was to write and put on a full scale festive musical at a big theatre, before being reminded that this isn't really achievable given the timescale - a point that was justified even more when I (in Izzy's words) "had a meltdown" and decided to tour a solo show. And besides, there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing another Christmas show in the wonderful little venue where we've been putting on stuff for years - it's become a tradition, and no matter what the year has to throw at us there's something quite comfortable in the knowledge that you'll be feeling all warm and festive putting on a show in front of a 'home' audience, it's normally the final project of the year.

This year we've doubled the run of performances, which in itself is a little bit of a challenge (we can sell-out 2 nights reasonably easy, 4 is asking a lot though - but I'm into asking a lot at the moment), and to create a little panic I left writing the script to the very last minute. Not intentional of course, but the tour show popped up, and then I allowed myself all of last week to write it but it just wasn't happening - I have 7 half-written Christmas scripts from this year alone that I've abandoned mid-way because they just weren't funny enough, in my opinion. In the end I wrote the whole show on Sunday, started at 10am, wrote solidly until 6pm, popped out to do the front-of-house for WriteOn at the ADC, home by 8pm, finished writing it by midnight. On Monday I looked over it again, took out all the rubbish, and last night we read through it for the first time as a team...and hurrah, it works a treat. It doesn't even feel rushed, it feels like it was written by somebody who was feeling properly festive - which I was - and finally latching onto an idea which worked before letting it grow naturally into something rather manic and excitable. You can almost tell the writer has just found his 'It's Christmas Time' CD and has been having a little private party in his flat whilst working on the dialogue. Quite relieved it did work last night, you can never tell - but the tempo of it felt consistent, and it was nice to write for people I trust and have worked with before. It's more of an ensemble piece compared to anything else I've written this year (with the exception of 'My Unfunny Valentine - Death Of A Comedienne' - our murder mystery), and includes pretty much everything that was on my check list of festive things. The show opens in about 3 weeks time, so now rehearsals are pretty intense, in fact on paper it's quite a tall order. Should be a goodun, then...