Branar tap into seasonal magic

One of the nation’s leading lights in children’s theatre, Branar Téatar do Pháistí, are currently touring their new Christmas show, Twas The Night Before Christmas.

Featuring Branar’s trademark mix of storytelling, live music, puppetry and physical theatre, the new show is inspired by the traditional Christmas poem of the same name.

“The thing I love about that poem is the sense of anticipation of what the next morning will bring,” says Marc Mac Lochlainn, the company’s artistic director. “I wanted to see if I could bring that wonder into a play, so our show is set in a fictional town in the year 1948 and it’s the first year that the town will have electricity for Christmas. So that’s the big build-up in the show — to see how magical the place will look when that happens. We have lovely little moments where the set is transformed. There are little parcels left onstage that eventually light up and turn into the houses in the village.”