Liverpool Nativity

I love Nativity plays, in fact I have even been known to write one or two in my time. But my attempts pale into insignificance compared to yesterday's Liverpool Nativity.
(In my own defense I was writing for 40 preschool children with one volunteer mum playing a badly tuned piano, so it was hardly in the same league as professional actors and musicians accompanied by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra!)
The play for those of you who didn't catch it live on BBC3 last night, was retold using modern analogies. Mary was a waitress at the Seacombe Ferry Terminal, Joseph an asylum seeker and King Herod became Herodia a government minister determined to make a name for herself by tackling immigration.
The music included songs by The Beatles, Teardrop Explodes, Dead or Alive, The La’s and The Zutons.
It was a great production with a host of Liverpudlian actors playing the central characters but special praise must be given to two newcomers Jodie McNee and Kenny Thompson for playing Mary and Joseph so brilliantly.
It made a fitting start to Liverpool's 2008 Capital of Culture program and made this old Liverpool Girl a very happy woman.