Shepherds flocked to watch play with twist
A Welsh farming community performed a parody of the traditional nativity story that featured three disoriented kings, gender-confused angels and a villainous Herod who looks suspiciously like Donald Trump.
The tongue-in-cheek play was staged to raise money for Wales Air Ambulance as well as the hospital unit that treated its writer and director, Llyr ap Glyn, who was involved in a horrific car smash earlier this year.
His script promised to spare few blushes amongst prominent local farmers as well as aiming humorous barbs at Brexit, Trump and immigration.
The play was held in a “barn” – actually a lambing shed – at Dylasau Uchaf, the Padog farm run by Llyr’s parents, FUW president Glyn Roberts and his wife Eleri.
“It’s a modern and humorous retelling of the nativity play from an agricultural perspective,” said Llyr.
“There’s quite a lot of micky-taking out of local farmers in the area. It’s a bit of fun – something to inject a bit of Christmas spirit whilst raising money for two very good causes.”
Half the proceeds will go to the major trauma unit at Stoke Hospital – it was here that Llyr, 29, was treated for critical injuries after his car was hit by a druggedup driver on the A5 in the Ogwen Valley in February.
Although he has yet to return to work as a valuations tribunal officer (“I’m 80% of the way there”), Llyr was determined to raise money for the hospital as a way of saying thanks.
“While I was there, two farmers were laid up with serious injuries, both incurred on their farms,” he said.
“I felt it was important the agricultural community recognised the fantastic work they do there.”
The idea for the play came from Llyr’s sister Beca after she watched an episode of the Vicar of Dibley which featured a barn-held nativity play.
The original plan was to hold it soon after her sister Heledd got married this summer in the farm’s lambing shed, which can accommodate up to 250 people. “But the weather turned,” said Beca, the play’s producer.
Instead Heledd contributed to the script, Beca played a female shepherd and third sister Mirarn was an angel.
In another gender reversal, FUW Dafydd Jones also has a part as an angel.
“I need to find a bedsheet and a halo,” he laughed ahead of the big night.
A key role, as the boo-hiss figure Herod-Trump, fell to former NFU Llanrwst area secretary Elfed Williams.
Instead of the historic census which brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, the plot revolved around a sheep head count organised by Farming Connect.
The Three Wise Men nearly don’t make it: instead they become marooned on a starless Migneint as Snowdonia grapples with its bid for Dark Skies status.
As for baby Jesus, the production was loaned a six-month infant by a neighbouring – and very trusting – family.
As is often the case at such fundraisers, the Nant Conwy farming community were chipping in: Hogia’r Ysbyty provided musical interludes, Ysbyty Ifan’s Ela Jones the costumes and Eleri Roberts the mince piece and (non-alchholic) mulled wine.