‘Thank you,’ Claire said as he picked the balls up for what felt like the millionth time. ‘Next.’
An old man wearing a suit and top hat walked on the stage with an old woman who seemed to be wearing a long evening dress and carrying a lot of stuff. They not only looked old but walked quite slowly.
‘I am Magic Marvin and this is my beautiful assistant, Dolly.’ He spoke with a flourish and a wave of his wand.
‘Hello,’ Claire said. ‘Clearly we don’t need to ask you what you do.’
What this had to do with Christmas, again, no idea.
‘First I will make this rabbit disappear,’ Magic Marvin said. Dolly put a table on the stage and out of a big bag she pulled a rabbit, luckily it was a toy one. Marvin placed it on the table, took his top hat off his head and put it over the rabbit.
‘I thought they were meant to take rabbits out of hats not put them in,’ Aleksy whispered. Connie shushed him.
‘Abracadabra,’ Marvin said, waving his wand over the hat. He pulled it up with a flourish; the rabbit was still there.
‘Dolly, did you set up the trick?’ he asked, his face turning red.
‘Well, I thought I did,’ Dolly sounded confused. ‘Do the next one, quickly.’
I tried not to notice Jonathan, Matt, and Tomasz shaking with laughter.
‘Right, well, now I shall turn the rabbit into a bunch of flowers.’
We all watched but the rabbit remained a rabbit. He was getting a little red faced and flustered. I really had no idea what was going on and nor did Magic Marvin, by the look of him.
‘For my final trick, I shall saw my beautiful assistant Dolly in half.’
We all looked horrified as Dolly handed him a saw.
‘No,’ Claire screeched. ‘I mean, honestly thank you. We probably won’t have magic in the show, because it is a Christmas show, but hopefully you can be involved in some way.’
‘I could make Santa disappear?’ Marvin offered.
I was pretty sure he really couldn’t do that.
Aleksy and Connie looked relieved as a group of about five children from their school came on the stage.
‘Hey,’ Aleksy said.
‘Aleksy, Connie, other lady,’ one of the lads stepped forward. ‘We are going to sing “Drummer Boy”, but the Justin Bieber, Busta Rhymes version.’ He coughed, and then pressed his phone and music rang out. They all sang and were actually really good. I saw Aleksy and Connie grin at each other and Claire smiled at me.
‘This helps make the show modern,’ Aleksy whispered to Claire, who nodded. They were followed by a dancing crew who were quite well known locally, apparently; a big group of boys and girls who filled the stage and were really amazing. One even spun on his head, which I thought looked painful but he seemed alright.
‘This is getting better and better,’ Connie hissed.
Vic and Heather’s singing group were up next, mostly people I recognised from Edgar Road, and they sang ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, which was actually really good.
‘Thank you so much,’ Claire said as they finished.
‘Well, you are welcome. We didn’t have time to get our costumes together but we will all be dressed the same if we get a part in the show of course, ha, ha.’ Actually he and Heather were wearing the same clothes, but the others looked normal. Not for long, it seemed.
Ralph’s choir followed with a very beautiful rendition of ‘Silent Night’. They could really sing very well, and the show began to take shape, it seemed.
Everyone cheered when Summer, Toby, Henry, Martha, and Pickles went on stage to do their Rudolph song, which was pretty good. The rap made it even more fun, although Pickles kept wandering off and sniffing things; he didn’t fall off the stage, which was something.
‘Sylvie, Marcus, and baby Theo,’ Connie said, when they’d finished.
‘We’re not auditioning, love,’ Sylvie said, sounding a little panicked. ‘We’re just here for moral support.’
‘But Mum, you have to,’ Connie said.
‘Well, the thing is, we thought Theo could be the baby Jesus … since he’s a baby,’ Aleksy explained.
‘Right, but how can he audition for that?’ Marcus asked. ‘I mean, he’s a baby.’
‘He won’t be as good as me,’ I heard George whisper to Hana.
‘He can’t, he’s got the part. We just need to cast the rest of the Nativity now,’ Aleksy said.
‘Yeah, we’re going to write the script, so it’s a bit more modern,’ Connie added.
‘You can’t really mess with the Nativity,’ Franceska pointed out.
‘No, but we can make it meaningful and fun and with the singing around it, it’ll be lovely,’ Connie said.
Claire called for anyone who wanted to audition for an acting part to line up. I was surprised how full the hall was still, even those who had already auditioned were staying to watch. It seemed that already everyone felt the spirit of the show. And as we’d listened to Christmas music, I was really beginning to feel full of festive spirit.
Because the auditions now focused on the Nativity, it was the actors that were taking to the stage. I wasn’t sure how many lines were in the Nativity, but everyone had their own ideas. One man even brought a toy sheep with him.
‘Hi, I’m Fred and I want to try out for the part of shepherd.’
‘Great Fred, so go ahead,’ I could see Claire trying not to laugh.
‘Good sheep, good sheep,’ he kept saying. No one knew quite how to respond to that.
Person after person took to the stage. All the while, Claire, Aleksy, and Connie were making notes. I had no idea what they said, although I was part of the panel– or I liked to think I was. I couldn’t read but I could give them a nudge when I thought someone was particularly good. There weren’t a lot of nudges going on right now though.
I was surprised as Harold walked onto the stage. He moved slowly as he shuffled to the middle. Harold wasn’t one for putting himself forward – we’d had an awful job trying to persuade him to tell Claire about the Sunday Lunch Club. He wasn’t full of confidence, that was for sure, but even he wanted to be a part of it all.
‘Hello, what’s your name and what are you auditioning for?’ Aleksy asked.
‘You know my name.’
‘Well, yes, but there are others here who might not,’ Claire pointed out.
‘Right, well, I’m Harold, I’m Connie there’s step-grandfather in fact, and I’m auditioning for the part of Santa.’
‘Oh, we didn’t have Santa down on our list, did we?’ Connie asked.
‘It’s a blooming Christmas show. How can you not have Santa?’ Harold boomed.
‘Good point,’ Claire said. ‘How about we close the show with Santa? We could do a song at the end like “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, and Santa could give out sweets to the audience, like they do in the panto?’
‘I’m not singing,’ Harold said.
‘OK then, but we could get the children on to sing and you could throw sweets or something into the audience,’ Aleksy said. ‘The grand finale.’
‘Oh I like the idea of being the grand finale.’ Harold preened.
‘Right, can you say, Ho, Ho, Ho?’ Connie asked.
‘Ho, Ho, Ho.’ Harold boomed as if he had been practising.
‘Great, thanks. We’ll let you know,’ Aleksy said.
‘Is that it?’ Harold asked.
‘Yes, you were great,’ Claire said, as Harold looked confused and then shuffled off stage.
I had to admit it was getting a bit tedious as I lay on the table. The auditions seemed to be going on forever, and I knew it was important but honestly, there was only so much‘there’s no room at the inn’ I could hear. I thought about taking forty winks, but my eyes widened in horror as the woman who threatened George and I walked onto the stage.
‘My name is Barbara and I am very experienced in stage work. I was part of my old local amateur dramatics society for years. I also used to be a drama teacher,’ she said.