Nativity! The Musical

Christmas came early to Ely this year with Campaign Amateur Theatre’s production of Nativity! Directed by Trevor Babbs this festive spectacular brought joy and laughter from start to finish. David Blaikie as Paul Maddens and Andy McGowan as Desmond Poppy shone throughout this show. The pair had excellent chemistry as the straightlaced Maddens and hapless Poppy and both gave strong vocal performances throughout. The foil to this pair was the spite-fuelled Gordon Shakespeare played masterfully by Gaz Brown. Brown towed the line between self-righteous indignation and pitiable insecurity with aplomb. Kerry Maltby had a lovely voice and gave a good performance as Jennifer Lore.  Bridget Hickish as headteacher Mrs Bevan brought charm and warmth to the role particularly in her final speech about the wonders of the children at St Bernadette’s. Mary Wade brought comedic charm as the very harsh critic Patricia Burns and also as the Hollywood studio guard. The adult ensemble took on a variety of both speaking and signing roles between them. They performed them with enthusiasm although it was difficult to hear their dialogue in places.

The heart and soul of this show was of course the massive cast of 36 children. The principle three characters of Katelyn, Ollie and TJ were played by a team of young performers. The Saturday matinee saw Georgia Dewsbury as Katelyn, Isaac Mynott as Ollie and Freddie Hammond as TJ. Georgia is a fantastic performer whose vocals shone whilst being manoeuvred around the stage as the Star of Bethlehem. Isaac Mynott brought the house down with his nativity themed rap and showed off his singing skills in Dear Father Christmas.

The song also featured Olivia Brown and Eliza King and was beautifully sung bringing tears to the eyes of some audience members.  Freddie Fordham, Lochlan Owens and Francesca Simmons gave nice performances as the younger versions of Paul, Gordon and Jennifer respectively. They, alongside Nicky Humbles as Mrs Claus, set the tone for the show wonderfully.

The staging was simple but effective. Some of the larger set pieces however seemed to give the stage crew some difficulty. One example of this being the door to Paul Madden’s house which was continuously misplaced with a gap at the side allowing the audience to see the actors entering and exiting. Another being the large Hollywood sign which at one point did knock into one of the children on stage whilst being moved. These issues did not distract from the overall performance but could have been smoothed out to perfect this already excellent show.

The costumes were impeccable in this show, from Hollywood glamour to Christmas reindeers and everything in between. With such a large cast it is impressive that all the costumes were of such a high standard including the many costumes required by the children for the Nativity spectacular in the second half. Tech was overall of a very high standard although it did seem to go astray in places in act two. The singing in this show was of a very high standard and the team behind the Musical Direction of Naomi D’Cunha, Jonathan Carter and Greg Lowes should be very proud. Choreography was impressively managed by Lisa Nixon who managed to seamlessly integrate the large cast into well-structured, dynamic numbers that never felt crowded or chaotic.

Overall, this was a very impressive show. With fantastic energy, singing and dancing throughout Nativity! captured the feeling of school nativity chaos but more importantly the heart and soul that this show is all about. Congratulations to both cast and crew for a wonderful performance. 

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