PAMELA STIRLING AND LYNDSEY FENTON have won two tix for the 3rd of Dec showing Well done!

What is it about those Freaky Friday-style stories, in which the parent and child swap places, that amuses us so much? Or those TV adverts where little kids talk like grown-ups? Why doesn’t acting our age delight both children and adults alike? One rather fanciful theory might be that laughter is the release of tension, in this case the tension results from an anxiety stemming from a deeply-rooted fear of mortality; watching adults play children, the kids sense that they too will one day be old like them, while the adults sense how far from childhood they themselves are now, and hence both sense how near to the final curtain call. Which may be altogether too glum a notion to impose on this localised rendition of Tim Firth’s (Calender Girls) 1999 Flint Street Nativity, in which a who’s who of Scottish acting talent let their inner child take the stage to play a bunch of kids gearing up for the school nativity, only for personal politics to undermine the festive cheer.

Rather than buying in some touring production they’re actually putting their money where their mouth is

Amongst a top-notch cast, including Steven McNicoll and Gail Watson, is Taggart actor Colin McCredie who takes the part of the kid who’s taking the part of Wise Frankincense. If one of the hallmarks of Christmas spirit is a sense of community, McCredie sees this production as entirely appropriate: ‘I think it’s quite a good thing the Festival Theatre are doing; rather than buying in some touring production they’re actually putting their money where their mouth is and staging an original production, employing Scottish actors and a Scottish crew…you could easily just buy in a Christmas Carol starring Russ Abbott or whatever…it’s the first time they’ve produced they’re own original show.’ It also manages to avoid the more traditional festive theatre experience: ‘People do like an antidote to pantomime…it’s a properly structured play,’ says McCredie, and anyone with a distaste for pandering tram jokes would be well advised to take this alternative.

Showing at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh: 3-19 Dec

And for a complete change of pace, we’re told there might be a revival of The Ching Room in which Colin and Andy Clark take coke in a toilet cubical of a Sauchiehall street club…as part of the play of course…so keep your eye on the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow this February.