Written, devised and directed by Janice Honeyman, co-directed by Marcus Desando, with a full cast. At Artscape Arena until Saturday.
Christmas comes but once a year and a jolly good thing too. I don't think many of us could stand more often than that the sight of youthful student Santas with snow-white beards, and the sound of Jingle Bells in supermarkets as we overspend on hams and turkeys.
However, now and then something crops up during the festive season that goes a long way to putting over the old, old Christmas story in a fresh and meaningful way.
Such a happening is this production of Starbrite. It is billed as a "lekker local musical", full of colour, vitality, humour and song in which the central characters of the Christmas story are all easily identifiable people from an informal Cape Town settlement.
In the story Mary and Joseph and their donkey (who also plays a butler) gate-crash a back street Bethlehem jol, and the Shepherds Jaap, Swaap, Klaas and Dwaas somehow get involved with sheep rustlers.
One of the features of watching Starbrite is the pleasure the cast, including a choir of angels, get from being in this production.
Their robust singing in the small venue adds an impressive and moving dimension to the nativity story, well told and much enjoyed by adults and children.