An Audience with Father Christmas!

English Heritage / Wrest Park 2025

The Brief

We were delighted to be commissioned by English Heritage to create a brand new Audience with Father Christmas experience at Wrest Park. The brief was to design a half-hour festive encounter for groups of 15–20 children and their families, combining storytelling, interaction and a gift for every child, while working in harmony with the operational needs of the site and its volunteer team.

What We Did

A key ambition for us was that the experience should feel rooted in Wrest Park itself, rather than being a generic Christmas performance. The experience was to take place in the Countess’s Sitting Room, an elegant historic interior bordered by the parterre gardens on one side and a glass hothouse on the other — offering a distinctive environment for an immersive, site-specific story. We undertook a detailed site visit and worked closely with the Wrest Park team, volunteers and English Heritage’s central events staff to understand the space and visitor journey. Building relationships was a vital part of ensuring the experience felt smooth and welcoming for families.

From this, we developed a bespoke scripted and interactive short play written by one of our most experienced Father Christmas performers, Julian. The story introduced a comic Elf sidekick called Partridge who, along with Father Christmas, had been invited by the Countess to Wrest Park for reindeer flying training. The building itself became part of the performance when Partridge made a memorable comic entrance from the hothouse, having become accidentally trapped inside, and was sung back into the Sitting Room by the audience, creating an immediate sense of play and connection to the space!

The Result

The Audience with Father Christmas experience received extremely positive feedback from the Wrest Park team. The performers were praised for their outstanding engagement with visitors of all ages, with many families commenting on how much they had enjoyed the experience. Children were described as leaving “with huge smiles and laughter,” while adults frequently stopped staff on their way out to share how much fun they had had too. The team were also commended for how well they worked alongside staff and volunteers, and for their patience and understanding when managing challenges such as late arrivals. Overall, the experience created a joyful and welcoming festive atmosphere, firmly rooted in Wrest Park and memorable for both children and adults alike.