The Spirit of Christmas                                               

The turkey, the tinsel the overloaded credit cards... "Christmas" as we know it today is a fairly recent invention. Much of what we consider to be the ritual of Christmas has been cobbled together over the centuries - a bit of pagan ceremony here, a slice of Prince Albert there, with Santa Claus dressed in a costume designed for him in a Coca Cola ad...

But what is the real meaning behind the annual celebrations? Is it a time for people to get together or simply an excuse for a no-bars blowout? Is there any room for less material ways of viewing the festive season? And are the jokes in Christmas crackers part of a plot to drive us all insane?

Put a disparate group of people into an hotel on Christmas Eve, take away all connection with the outside world, and perhaps - between them -they might find out the answers by the time the mince pies have all been eaten.

That's the theory behind "The Spirit of Christmas", written specially for the Wrington Drama Group by local writer Tony Watts. But rather like the inmates of "Big Brother" or "I'm a celebrity get me out of here" it transpires that many people have a lot of internal issues to resolve first.

So is the play serious, or a comedy? Character drama or farce? Hopefully all these things -and more besides.
A bit like life, then.