Review of Scene 14
Flight to Egypt and grand finale
By Our Man Padding it Out, Steve Tomkins

It's all over. This remarkable performance must be unique in the history of theatre, of the internet and, let's face it, of anything at all. Whether that's a good things depends on your perspective.

It weighed in at about 3,500 lines of dialogue spread over 216 hours of performance (including some pretty quiet ones, admittedly). There was a cast of 82, a number of whom turned up for the show.

Some of the performances were rather good, much as some of the population of the USA were in Simon and Garfunkel.

Joseph I don't suppose I'll ever see in same light again. "Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden, popped into Rent-a-Rabbi and took Mary home as his wife." The one in the Gospels is, we must all agree, but a pale reflection.

And how did we ever tolerate those boringly conventional nativity plays without Jesus having a single evil twin or fairy godmother?

Those of you who have followed the whole thing from the start will (a) be aware of the enormous amount of time and typing it demanded from those involved – a demand which some of them fulfilled, and (b) need your heads read.

But I believe that in time some of the innovations seen here will become definitive, an essential part of the ever-evolving Christmas tradition. Such as the fact that Elizabeth's visitation by Mary involves both of them getting loudly bladdered. That Mary's journey to Bethlehem is not so much on the back of a donkey, as with a donkey in the back of a Skoda. That they didn't stay in the inn because of a flesh-eating zombie disease. And that the magi escaped Herod's helicopters in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Such other innovations as the annunciation sans angel I think the world is probably not ready for yet.

As for tonight's finale, you may have noticed I've no idea what happened, because in the great tradition of theatre criticism I slunk off before the last act and went on holiday.

So here instead is what should have happened. Brian reappears and slays Joseph in a heroic duel, finally offering Mary the chance of passably true happiness. Jesus grows up to become a major figure in world religion. Cyril Lavinia builds a kingdom of evil under the sea which explodes after a visit from either James Bond or Luke Skywalker. Wise Man 2 becomes the President of the United States. More or less everyone else is consumed by a flesh-eating zombie disease.

Merry Christmas.

© Ship of Fools 2002