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‘The Christmas Story’ play targets local high school for volunteers in church production.For the last nine years St Elvan’s Church, Aberdare, has put on multiple English and Welsh performances inviting their community to enjoy an adult-cast quality Nativity at Christmas time.Daniel Ames, 16, is a sixth former at St John the Baptist Church in Wales High School. Already doing tech for the church, Dan was keen to volunteer his skills and was on the lighting and sound teams for the performances.Dan said, “I loved every minute of working on it, because it was a new experience for me. The best bit was getting to hear about how everyone enjoyed it. It is a possibility for young people to get involved. And, well, it's not exactly a bad story. I just wish the more sixth formers would be involved with it to be honest. It's good experience and you get to me a lot of very nice people there.

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Sixth-formers can choose to be on stage or behind the scenes, like Dan on sound and lighting!

"I love being social, so it really speaks to me in that aspect because I was able to talk to people after the performance. It's definitely helped with my own faith and by the end of the week I was pretty sure I would be able to recite the whole story.”Fr Robert Davies, vicar of St Elvan’s Church, added, “It gives young people an opportunity, particularly if they're interested in the theatre to do some extra work. It looks good on their CV too."That's why we encourage that particularly. Once they start doing it, it's amazing how they really love it.”

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St Elvan’s seeks volunteers each year from the church and local high school. Each year varies on how many sixth formers help out and some are behind the scenes like Dan, and others are on the stage.Fr Roberts said, “Very often this time of year, nativity have the children doing the acting and the adults are doing the watching but with ‘The Christmas Story’ it’s a twist with the adults on stage and children watching. And I think it shows the children how seriously we take the Christmas story.”It gives young people an opportunity, particularly if they're interested in the theatreSchools from the area are invited to watch the production Mondays to Fridays with up to 200 pupils in the audience at a time. The Welsh Language school, Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Aberdar, is invited to one of the multiple plays that are performed in Cymraeg.The schools are then invited to stay after the performance to meet the cast in their costumes (including the two Welsh-speaking donkeys from Carmarthen), hold the baby Jesus, take photos and take part in Christmas activities such as carols, bell ringing and colouring books and calendars.Fr Robert said, “We wouldn't manage without having the children from schools and that's very much part of the planning beforehand. We take bookings for the school children to watch the productions and spend the day with us.”

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Despite some questions over whether the production would be doable after a three-year gap, Fr Robert said he ‘kept the faith’ resulting in over 2000 people going to see the 18 productions put on this year.The large team that made it possible was made up of people from a variety of different churches and chapels, people from theatrical backgrounds, and other mixed backgrounds. The team volunteers were on the stage, directing, running sound and lighting, ushering and looking after the donkeys.Fr Robert said of the 2022 showings, “It was such a great success and such a marvellous time. It was lovely to see everybody working so well together. People of different backgrounds, people from different of different ages, people from different chapels, churches, whatever their background was, everybody was welcomed. And we all worked well together. I think that's why it's so important for everyone."The story is magic. What we do is we put the story out there. And we let the story do the talking which is I think is really important. We're not saying ‘Come to my church’, we're saying ‘This is the real story of Christmas. We hope that you can take it on board as we have taken it on board as well.’”

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Due to the wide-scale and success of the performance, The Christmas Story format has been picked up by other churches much to Fr Roberts delight: “We've been able to pass it on, you know, we don't keep it close to us. We say ‘Look, this is very special. You do this as well.’ We've got a community happier in the church, but also, we're still showing how we can work together very well as people of different ages and different churches and chapels as well.”Some years the production has been filmed to be shared across social media and to other churches. With a buzz on social media the community has also responded making a ‘festival’ feel in the town when the play is on.All tickets to the Christmas Story are free of charge but donations during the showings go towards the production cost and the upkeep of the donkeys.