Why does not acting our age get both children and adults alike giggling? Is the laughter a release of tension that arises from the role reversal’s highlighting of life’s fleetingness? Are we giddy at the underlying truth that children and adults can be just as wise or as puerile as each other? Or is it simply because it looks ridiculous? Whatever it is, it’s available for your perusal with this localised version of Tim Firth’s hit TV show-cum-stage play.

Amusing gags undercut with a jagged edge of reality

With some of Scottish theatre’s more familiar faces playing kids, we see the various rivalries, attractions and distractions taking place between the players in a school nativity. The bitter Gabriel (Sarah Crowe) is desperate to usurp Mary (Julie Wilson Nimmo) in the lead role, while the Innkeeper (Jimmy Chisholm) seems to want to give Mary her first non-virgin birth; Wise Frank (Colin McCredie) is nervous about his lines since he has a lisp, and Joseph (Ryan Fletcher) can’t stop staring into the audience. Will the nativity hold together?

When it’s at its best, Joanna Read’s competent production delivers some amusing gags undercut with a jagged edge of reality: “That’s my mum,” says McNicholl’s Star to Chisholm’s Innkeeper as they look into the audience; “That’s my social worker,” he replies. At its worst, it feels somewhat pat; kids know swear words, don’t you know. Designer Nancy Surman might have made more of the set; one oversized chair and some biggish steps aren’t quite enough to shrink the actors to sprog-size, but the actors themselves mostly manage to capture that childlike excitability and insecurity. A moderately amusing and even resonant piece of seasonal theatre for those adults who’ve had the gnawing feeling that Christmas is arriving a little bit earlier with every passing year since they grew up.

until 19 Dec www.eft.co.uk