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Lindsay Bruce: This Christmas, spare a thought for shy children expected to perform

Not everyone is set for stardom - and it's never more obvious than during a school Christmas performance (Image: Petrychenko Anton/Shutterstock)
Not everyone is set for stardom - and it's never more obvious than during a school Christmas performance (Image: Petrychenko Anton/Shutterstock)

The unpredictable nature of what children will do in the limelight strikes fear into Lindsay Bruce’s self-conscious heart, she writes.

There are two types of parents: those who love end-of-term Christmas plays, and those who get the fear at the mere announcement that their children could be given a microphone in public.

I’m firmly in the sweaty-palmed second cohort.

It’s not that I don’t love nativities. Huge fan right here. As I am with all things Christmas, actually. It’s just the unpredictable nature of what the mini-versions of myself will do in the limelight that strikes fear into my self-conscious heart.

Take my eldest, for example. For three years, we had tears because he wasn’t chosen to take part in his school’s reenactment of Jesus’s birth. Not even “second lobster”, if you’re a fan of Love Actually.

So, when he was offered the role of Donkey Number One, we celebrated. We invited family members. We recorded his big moment for posterity.

“What could possibly go wrong?” I smugly wondered. All he had to do was “ee-aw” on cue, flanked by Cow Two and a veritable herd of sheep. They were supposed to form a kind of cattle choir.

Instead, when the spotlight landed on wee Bruce, he became a voiceless donkey in the headlights. Not a peep. Well, except from the child next to him who panicked on his behalf, farting a bit too near the microphone.

Accidental nudity and freakin’ riding on a camel

With this now etched on our memories, when it came the stage debut of the next Bruce, there was a definite cap on our enthusiasm. “Don’t worry,” the little Catholic RE teacher told us, “He won’t be speaking.”

Hurrah. A non-speaking part. My little lamb will be one of many tiny sheep, just bounding onto the stage for a carol, then tottering off again.

The big day came and on he lolloped, barefoot and wearing what looked like a pillow case, with a cotton wool encrusted headband. Safety ensured, the camera came out again, just in time to see him skipping off.

Eyes still locked to the front, I whispered to my friend: “Could you see my son’s naked hin’end too?” “Yep,” she replied, trying not to laugh.

As he happily exited stage right, my son’s white nightie went flapping into the air, revealing a pair of dimpled little bare bum cheeks.

Confirmed: there were definitely camels involved somehow (Image: Rawpixel. com/Shutterstock)

On pressing my little flasher for information, it turned out he had followed the teacher’s instructions to the letter. “Go in there and take all your clothes off,” she had said. “Then get into your costumes.” Which is exactly what he did.

The following year, I suspect to guard against nudity, they got him to sing a solo. Home he came to practice said song.

Fortunately, we remedied this near disaster before the big day, but you can see where I’m coming from

Standing with his arms folded, legs apart, and with a kind of gangster rapper snarl, he belts out the unforgettable words: “Freakin’ ridin’, freakin’ ridin’, freakin’ riding on a camel.”

After a bit of Facebook investigation with the other mums, it turned out he was supposed to be singing Three Kings Riding. Fortunately, we remedied this near disaster before the big day, but you can see where I’m coming from. We’re just not stage-perfect people.

I still have nightmares about Christmas 1985

When you watch You’ve Been Framed and some kid lifts their skirt up mid-song revealing polka-dot pants, or when someone falls off the stage at the high note… Yeah, those are my people.

I actually still have nightmares thinking about Christmas 1985. The head teacher thought it a stroke of genius to gather the whole primary school to sing Shakin’ Stevens‘s newly released Merry Christmas Everyone, followed by more traditional carols.

Unbelievably, not one of the 96 kids made a mistake doing the hand jive. The pint-sized Shaky lookalike danced his little socks off perfectly. And even the two “big ones” inexplicably dressed as wrestlers Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks carried out their roles seamlessly.

All good, until little Lindsay was thrust centre stage to sing the first verse of Once in Royal David’s City a cappella. I mean, in my defence, not only am I tone-deaf, but whose idea was it to not press play on the hi-fi?

It actually started well, but it was the unknowing and accidental transition into another hymn that undid me.

On reflection, I think I spiralled at the line “there a mother laid her baby”, wondering why I hadn’t heard about children coming from eggs. The only words I could think to belt out after that were: “Hark, the herald angels sing.”

School performances are a Christmas tradition, but not everybody enjoys them (Image: Shutterstock / Africa Studio/Shutterstock)

I’m not sure I’ve ever recovered. I’ve certainly never sung in public again, unless you count a very Glaswegian rendition of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Last Waltz at a sticky-carpeted karaoke bar.

My children, however, are dauntless in the face of public humiliation. And, as of this morning, preparations have begun for number three to take part in our church children’s choir.

Spare a thought this festive season for the uncoordinated, the shy, the clumsy and the tuneless. Invariably, they will be front and centre.


Lindsay Bruce is obituaries writer for The Press and Journal, as well as an author and speaker

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