The Night Before Christmas

Accessibility Tools

Here is some information to help you prepare for your visit to see “The Night Before Christmas”.

If you have any questions then please don’t hesitate to reach out to us by emailing info@jellyfishtheatre.com. We want to make sure that you feel comfortable watching our show, and we will be pleased to hear from you.

What to expect:

Three actors pretend to be all the different characters in “The Night Before Christmas”. Their real names are Susannah, Lauren and Dexter.

Here they are:

Susannah Cann

Lauren Ava-Thomas

Dexter Southern

The Night Before Christmas

Synopsis

It’s Christmas Eve in the Elves’ workshop. Three elves called Sky, Brenda and Flick are working. They are making the presents for Santa Claus to deliver to everyone. They have made nearly all of them - just two left to make. Flick is the new elf in the workshop and she’s just learning how to do everything. The elves read the letters that children have written to Santa, then they use the magical present machine to make the presents the children have asked for. The machine needs moon juice to work - a bit like a car needs fuel. Flick accidentally knocks the moon juice over and spills some. A song comes on the radio. The elves dance. Then the radio says, “It’s Sock o’clock!” time for the elves to give each other their presents. Brenda and Sky give each other socks for Christmas. But Flick doesn’t know that this is the tradition. Flick has written a song for Brenda and Sky. “Oh Flick!”, they say. “You can’t sing a Christmas present!”. Flick is sad because she has spent a lot of time thinking about the song and she thought they would like it .

This picture shows the three elves standing in front of their present machine. There are sacks hanging up. The elves keep all the ingredients to make presents in these sacks.

The three elves use the machine to make a teddy bear. Now there is only one present left to make. But then, suddenly, the present machine breaks down because it’s run out of moon juice. When Flick says she’ll go outside to the cave at the bottom of the garden to get some more moon juice the other elves warn him about the snowman. The snowmen are not dangerous, but they can’t stop sneezing. They tell her the story of the sneezing snowmen. It goes like this:

Long ago there was a snowman. He was very serious. He sang all day long. Then a mischievous wind spirit called Ariella arrived. She tickled the snowman until he sneezed. “I have taken your song!” , said Ariella. “Now you can’t sing any more! You can only sneeze!” And then the snowman started to sneeze and sneeze, and all the sneezing disturbed the clouds, and it started to snow and snow and snow!

“It’s only a story!”, says Flick and she goes outside to get the spare moon juice from the cave. But when she comes out of the cave she hears the snowmen sneezing, and then it starts snowing really heavily. Flick can’t find her way back to the Elf house. She’s lost in the snow.

Meanwhile, Freda Sparkle is presenting a special Christmas Edition of the Quizz show “Elves and Humans, Humans and Elves”. There are 2 human contestants and one elf. They answer questions about Christmas and then everyone joins in for a song battle. Sky is the elf contestant - he’s not very good at answering the questions and in the end he goes off to look for Flick outside in the snow.

Outside in the snow Flick is still trying to find her way back to the elf house. She meets a sneezing snowman called Snowman Charlie McChill. He is friendly but he tells her to run away before he sneezes on her. Flick runs away, but it’s really snowy, so she ends up running around in a circle because she can’t see where she’s going. She finds Charlie McChill dancing with a snowlady. Flick joins in but then the snowmen disappear and Flick is all alone. She’s cold and tired. She’s about to give up when a donkey arrives. The donkey gives Flick a lift home to the elf house in return for three carrots.

Back in the elf house, Brenda is trying to finish the last present in time for Santa to come. She hears a sneeze. It’s Snowman Charlie McChill. “Where’s my present?”, says Charlie McChill. Brenda realises that the last letter is from Charlie McChill. It says: “All I want for Christmas is to stop sneezing and sing again. Please can I have a song that everyone can sing together?” Flick and Sky arrive back. Flick has the moon juice. They send Charlie McChill outside so that he doesn’t melt. They put the moon juice into the machine. Then with Flick’s help, they make a song for everyone to sing together.

The end

The Night Before Christmas

Show Notes

These are notes of some of the exciting / loud moments that may happen during the show, or that you may want to think about before coming to see “The Night Before Christmas”.

The show is about 45 minutes long. There is no interval.

Characters climb up a step ladder and put ingredients into the present machine. The present machine makes noises. The noises aren’t real. They are sound effects. The present machine is not real. It’s part of the scenery, and it helps the actors to tell you the story. The actors have practised everything and it is safe.

During the show there are songs and music. All the actors sing and they also dance. Dexter and Lauren play the guitar.

The actors wear snowman costumes. This picture shows the headpieces for the snowman costumes. And they also pretend to be a donkey. These are not real. They are just pretending to be the characters.

Sometimes the actors invite the audience to join in with songs and actions. You don’t have to join in but you can if you want to. In the quizz show, the actors invite two volunteers from the audience to come on to the stage. The volunteers come because they want to join in, but they don’t have to.

If you need to go out of the room during the show and then come back in again, this is fine. We want you to feel relaxed and comfortable during the show.