Review of Scene 9
Fear Not! – Shepherds and angels proclaiming
By Our Man All Seated on the Ground, Steve Tomkins

A scene full of angels, shepherds and sheep. Since each of them has been unaccountably onstage in just about every scene so far, being generally dopey and irrelevant, we pretty much know what to expect. The prospect of a night on the hillside with them and suddenly death loses its sting.

The fact that Chief Comic Shepherd is sitting in his pants washing his biblical stripy dressing gown ("It's bloomin' cold up 'ere in just me undies. Snuggle up, Rudolph me old Lamb!") is somehow not quite the kind of cheap titillation we need to pass the long winter evening.

But what's this? Swooping down among the more conventional angels is one in black with goth make-up and fangs. How did any nativity play ever get by without one?

"Shepherds! Fear not!" say the other two angels.

"FEAR!" cries Black Angel.

She then makes the splendid achievement of winning Angel 1 over to the dark side, which might, one hopes, make things interesting at the stable tomorrow.

Sadly, nothing much comes of all this yet, and and the sum total of Black Angel's evil machinations is to dye Rudolph the Red-nosed Sheep purple. The assembled celestial beings and sheep operatives then spend a considerable number of hours discussing the subjects of going to the pub and make up.

If anything more interesting than that happened, I missed it.

© Ship of Fools 2002