For a show with the publicity slogan, ‘Jeff Carpenter seems to have confused musical with shit’, this production wasn’t nearly offensive enough. Having been promised an outrageous take on the Nativity story as part of Carpenter’s ‘ongoing offence against theatre’, I was geared up for profane humour and sacrilegious songs. Instead I got a glorified school play, complete with tinsel, keyboard backing track and pantomime chants.

The musical was intended to be cheesy and tongue in cheek, but the novelty of a pantomime-villain Herod and German-scientist Magi wasn’t enough to significantly differentiate the show from familiar primary-school fare. Corpus Playroom was intentionally turned into a junior school hall, but the similarities went too far. When Carpenter at the keyboard began mouthing lyrics to the cast, it was because it was necessary rather than because he was playing a music teacher. The awkward air and unreliable projection of the tinselled angels, who sat cross-legged along the back of the stage waiting for their one line each of scene setting, was similarly too reminiscent of the real thing.

Though it wasn’t enough to sustain over an hour of lateshow, there was some inventive characterization. Herod (Saul Boyer) was a charismatic pantomime villain replete with evil cackle; the three kings were bizarrely German, and stranger still, Zoroastrian scientists; and the horse, ox, cow and cat of the stable made a stirring musical protest against the occupation of their dwelling. The surfer-dude shepherds (Jennie King and Julia Shelley) were a favourite. Happily stoned, they lay gazing at the night sky with the occasional ‘woahhh, duuude, look at that star!’ before breaking into their musical number, ‘Chillin’’. They looked suitably dazed when they arrived at the holy scene clad in board-shorts and Hawaiian shirts.

Simon Perfect, James Swanton and Jamie Hansen were kooky scientists Melchior, Balthasar and Caspar. Swanton once again astonished with the elasticity of his facial muscles, though his gawping couldn’t prop up the many scenes of unrelenting mad-scientist cliché. Why they were characterized as German was never made clear, though it gave Carpenter the opportunity to compose a euro-techno number for them called ‘It’s Logical’, to which they did a teutonic robot dance.

Theo Boyce as Joseph and Amy Powell as Mary were likeable as the happy couple. Boyce was cutely bashful in his wooing of Mary, and his proposal song, ‘I’m gonna do it’, in which he geared himself up to pop the question, was a highlight - especially when interrupted by Mary putting her head round the kitchen door with a ‘Sorry, I couldn’t quite hear what you were singing, darling?’ His unimpressed reaction to the news of his girlfriend’s pregnancy was fun, leading into their tongue-twister duet ‘what’s God got that I haven’t got?’ Powell had the strongest voice of the evening and did a good job of her Magnificat. As the emotional centre of the story, I could have done with more of Boyce and Powell at the expense of some of the repetitive Herod and Magi scenes.

Though the school play set-up made unflattering parallels with primary school drama hard to avoid, it almost gave the opportunity for some much-needed offensive humour: I hoped Jack Oxley, the class teacher, was being pervy when he welcomed the audience of parents with a ‘I bet you’ve been looking forward to this all year...I know I have.’ Unfortunately moments of ironic humour were few and far between, and it wasn’t till the very last scene that anyone made an ‘it’s like Christmas!’ joke.

As the strength of the show was in Carpenter’s well-written tunes, it was a shame that the singing was so patchy. The audience were clearly enjoying themselves, raucously joining in the “Oh no you aren’t”s, but their enthusiasm couldn’t make up for the lack-lustre performances onstage.