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‘I thought they were meant to take rabbits out of hats not put them in,’ Aleksy whispered. Connie shushed him.

‘Abracadabra,’ Marvin said, waving his wand over the hat. He pulled it up with a flourish; the rabbit was still there.

‘Dolly, did you set up the trick?’ he asked, his face turning red.

‘Well, I thought I did,’ Dolly sounded confused. ‘Do the next one, quickly.’

I tried not to notice Jonathan, Matt, and Tomasz shaking with laughter.

‘Right, well, now I shall turn the rabbit into a bunch of flowers.’

We all watched but the rabbit remained a rabbit. He was getting a little red faced and flustered. I really had no idea what was going on and nor did Magic Marvin, by the look of him.

‘For my final trick, I shall saw my beautiful assistant Dolly in half.’

We all looked horrified as Dolly handed him a saw.

‘No,’ Claire screeched. ‘I mean, honestly thank you. We probably won’t have magic in the show, because it is a Christmas show, but hopefully you can be involved in some way.’

‘I could make Santa disappear?’ Marvin offered.

I was pretty sure he really couldn’t do that.

Aleksy and Connie looked relieved as a group of about five children from their school came on the stage.

‘Hey,’ Aleksy said.

‘Aleksy, Connie, other lady,’ one of the lads stepped forward. ‘We are going to sing “Drummer Boy”, but the Justin Bieber, Busta Rhymes version.’ He coughed, and then pressed his phone and music rang out. They all sang and were actually really good. I saw Aleksy and Connie grin at each other and Claire smiled at me.

‘This helps make the show modern,’ Aleksy whispered to Claire, who nodded. They were followed by a dancing crew who were quite well known locally, apparently; a big group of boys and girls who filled the stage and were really amazing. One even spun on his head, which I thought looked painful but he seemed alright.

‘This is getting better and better,’ Connie hissed.

Vic and Heather’s singing group were up next, mostly people I recognised from Edgar Road, and they sang ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, which was actually really good.

‘Thank you so much,’ Claire said as they finished.

‘Well, you are welcome. We didn’t have time to get our costumes together but we will all be dressed the same if we get a part in the show of course, ha, ha.’ Actually he and Heather were wearing the same clothes, but the others looked normal. Not for long, it seemed.

Ralph’s choir followed with a very beautiful rendition of ‘Silent Night’. They could really sing very well, and the show began to take shape, it seemed.

Everyone cheered when Summer, Toby, Henry, Martha, and Pickles went on stage to do their Rudolph song, which was pretty good. The rap made it even more fun, although Pickles kept wandering off and sniffing things; he didn’t fall off the stage, which was something.

‘Sylvie, Marcus, and baby Theo,’ Connie said, when they’d finished.

‘We’re not auditioning, love,’ Sylvie said, sounding a little panicked. ‘We’re just here for moral support.’

‘But Mum, you have to,’ Connie said.

‘Well, the thing is, we thought Theo could be the baby Jesus … since he’s a baby,’ Aleksy explained.

‘Right, but how can he audition for that?’ Marcus asked. ‘I mean, he’s a baby.’

‘He won’t be as good as me,’ I heard George whisper to Hana.

‘He can’t, he’s got the part. We just need to cast the rest of the Nativity now,’ Aleksy said.

‘Yeah, we’re going to write the script, so it’s a bit more modern,’ Connie added.

‘You can’t really mess with the Nativity,’ Franceska pointed out.

‘No, but we can make it meaningful and fun and with the singing around it, it’ll be lovely,’ Connie said.

Claire called for anyone who wanted to audition for an acting part to line up. I was surprised how full the hall was still, even those who had already auditioned were staying to watch. It seemed that already everyone felt the spirit of the show. And as we’d listened to Christmas music, I was really beginning to feel full of festive spirit.

Because the auditions now focused on the Nativity, it was the actors that were taking to the stage. I wasn’t sure how many lines were in the Nativity, but everyone had their own ideas. One man even brought a toy sheep with him.

‘Hi, I’m Fred and I want to try out for the part of shepherd.’

‘Great Fred, so go ahead,’ I could see Claire trying not to laugh.

‘Good sheep, good sheep,’ he kept saying. No one knew quite how to respond to that.

Person after person took to the stage. All the while, Claire, Aleksy, and Connie were making notes. I had no idea what they said, although I was part of the panel– or I liked to think I was. I couldn’t read but I could give them a nudge when I thought someone was particularly good. There weren’t a lot of nudges going on right now though.