WHEN you’ve got a perfect cast performing a highly-acclaimed version of a couple of episodes of a favourite TV comedy, why not reprise the experience for some other episodes of the show. That was the welcome thinking behind Paul Townsend’s Christmas production at Strode Theatre in Street, getting the faithful audience into the festive spirit with Geraldine Grainger and her Dibley cohort.

And great fun it was. Ian Gower and Paul Carpenter have adapted the original television scripts by Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, but the Street director was very aware that audiences wanted to see their favourite characters, so this was more of a – brilliantly observed – Rory Bremner job than an opportunity for new characterisations.

And Jess Russell once again just took your breath away as Alice Horton nee Tinker, with every twitch and nuance point-perfectly Emma Chambers, the brilliantly funny actress who died in 2018. It was like reincarnation.

That’s running the story on a bit, as the show centres on a nativity play about the birth of the Christ child, albeit in the village Christmas show. Of course the parish council, with all its beloved members, want their slice of the action, and the Rev Geraldine has the mammoth task of keeping them all happy. Charlotte Wanklin returns as the loveable vicar, with Kevin Hardacre as the bumbling Hugo and Barry Squance as his (presumably Reform-voting) father, David, a man whose references to his fellow human beings would inevitably bring cancellation in the 2020s.

Gareth Wanklin is the marvellously stammering Tourettical Jim, with Glynn Webster as Owen, the farmer with a unique take on animal husbandry. Rob Trayhurn has a moving moment as the confessional Frank, and there are memorable cameo roles from some of Street Theatre’s most treasured performers, including Karen Squance, Jane Sayer and Sara Holt.

With its complex scene changes and hilarious physical comedy, this is a show to delight the audience and royally entertain the enterprising and versatile cast. Are there any Easter episodes to go, please??

GP-W