Every nursery teacher will recognise the phenomenon that is the 'children's performance' at Christmas time. In the past, this would be the Nativity, but nowadays, sensitive to the multi-ethnicity in our schools, we often produce a more generalised concert or play to show off the children's dramatic and musical abilities.
In the large nursery that I ran in a south London primary school, I enjoyed creating our end-of term performances. Last time, I wrote a short story entitled 'The Most Beautiful Gift'. It carried a gentle but meaningful message, wrapped up in a repertoire of songs and action rhymes, with an accumulating heap of colourful nursery-made props - gifts for Father Christmas.
The children were to sit in a circle, dressed in brightly coloured T-shirts, like a rainbow. When a colour group was chosen by Santa Claus, those children would exit through a 'Stars In Their Eyes'-type curtain of silver strips, and return bearing a beautiful gift for him. Stars, snowflakes, elephants, dancing, bubbles, rainbows - all of these and more were proffered, accompanied by lusty singing.
We were to give four performances. On the morning of the first, after many rehearsals, the children were clearly wondering why on earth we had to tell this story, by now tedious, yet again! However, the bribes on offer - jelly spiders - did the trick, and we sailed through three performances with ease, pride and delight. There were many congratulations, too.
Then came the fourth and last performance. Eager families streamed in, clutching cameras and Kleenex, followed by Joyce, our lead teacher, and her class, and a few VIPs. From the back room we could hear the rustling of programmes. 'Give it everything you've got,' I instructed my pint-sized performers. It seemed I had unwittingly reverted to my former life as a professional actress. 'Sing loudly, but don't shout. Smile a lot, and all join in. Do it really well, and you'll have a treat afterwards.'
We entered the arena. My wonderful rainbow children gazed at me attentively, as I embarked on my narration. Not for one second did I see a hint of malicious revenge in their wide, luminous eyes. I was filled with proud anticipation, combined with maybe just a touch of martyred exhaustion and the longing to become a shelf-stacker in Tesco. I launched in. 'Once upon a time, about a week before Christmas, Santa Claus came to visit...'
Rochelle, one of our most enthusiastic children, waiting to find out which role she would be chosen to play this time around, suddenly screamed as I approached her, 'No I don't want to, I don't want to, I said!' The junior class sat mesmerised in disbelief. One by one, each of our special needs children decided to demonstrate their special needs. Shona found several perfect moments to shout out, 'Jenny, there's poo-poo on the carpet over here!'
Darren spent the entire time trying to dislodge our silver curtain in order to decapitate the children sitting under it. Four hitherto mature and reasonable children separately took centre stage saying 'Jenny, I have to go to the toilet, now!' One of them, Greg, flew back again as Superman with arms outstretched and beaming with relief and the accompanying vocals.
Martin, a very small, angelic-looking three-year-old, found that if he leaned far enough to the right, it had a fascinating domino effect, causing the whole circle of sitting children to fall to their right in hysterics.
Our academic genius, Andre, with great gusto and purpose, suddenly hurled himself across the stage area on his stomach yelling, 'I'm the Blue Power Ranger!' And our best helper, Sharon, not to be out done, decided to show her mother that she could almost do cart-wheels.
Throughout this surreal piece, which I swear lasted three-and-a-quarter hours, I kept spitting through clenched teeth, 'Come on, children, sing with me - sing, why don't you!' To my shame, after the less than rapturous applause had died down, I did not distribute the promised treats - well, not until the next day! And I am almost sure I will not feel the urge to put on another West End production at Christmas time... I think.
