All the world’s stage a

The Dark Lord played the angel Gabriel in one of her first nativities – a miscasting if ever there was one.

But compared to the rest of the young actors, she behaved quite well. Joseph had a nervous breakdown and couldn’t stop crying, Mary decked him with her baby doll Jesus, while my show-off daughter turned Gabriel into an all-singing, all-dancing messenger of God.

Reader Helen Tabern in Garswood, Merseyside, also found herself ruining the Christmas message.

She writes: “My only claim to fame in the theatrical field was when I was a page boy, aged 12, to one of the three wise men in the school Christmas production.

“I was only picked because I had a page boy haircut and, as it was the last scene, all I had to do was to keep perfectly still until the curtain came down.

“Unfortunately, due to nerves and the fact that I was very hot under my costume, I fainted, thus ruining the tableau!”

And our regular contributor Tony Sykes, in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, also has a funny tale of treading the boards. Or rather, skidding off them.

He says: “My all-boys secondary school decided to put on Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado. As a timid, rather small 12 year old with bright ginger hair, I was cast as one of the Three Little Maids with a small lad and Bill, a very large lad.

“On the day of the performance, we had to run on from the wings, then slide on our knees to a stop.

“I stopped, Bill didn’t and took the other lad and most of the scenery off the stage to a big cheer.

“Which left me to sing Three Little Maids on my own.”

Email your school-play mishaps to siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk