CHRISTMAS is coming early for a York theatre company – and then it is coming later too.

York Musical Theatre Company is putting on two seasonal shows this year. The first, Christmas Crackers, will be performed by a 12-strong cast at Sheriff Hutton village hall on Saturday, November 24, at 7.30pm and The Black Lion pub in Thirsk on Sunday, December 2, also at 7.30pm.

The company will then perform Ding Dong Merrily, an evening of carols and readings, accompanied by a pianist, at the National Centre for Early Music in York on December 4 and at the Galtes Centre in Easingwold on December 18, both at 7.30pm.

Richard Bainbridge and Moira Murphy, who have devised Christmas Crackers, make for quite a double act in their own right, teasing and joshing each other, and happy to mug for the photographer, as you can see here.

It turns out that Richard is a man of many parts. “Oh, don’t ask him,” pleads Moira at one point. He runs the pub in Thirsk, where the performance will tie in with the Christmas Fair in the town.

The Dickens show was performed last year at the pub and went down well. “It’s a Georgian building with low ceilings and it’s like Fagin’s kitchen in there,” says Richard, who has been in the company for 30 years; Moira joined 11 years ago.

Richard trained as an actor, but withdrew from professional acting after a back injury. “I then I realised now much more fun you could have doing amateur shows, picking and choosing what you liked and not having to worry about the mortgage.”

Moira trained as a dancer and actor, but never really took this anywhere. She joined the company after she moved to Sheriff Hutton.

The company has been through many permutations and has had different names down the years. Richard and Moira are keen to point out it is being reborn “or reconstituted and regurgitated” as Richard puts it, perhaps confusingly. Paul Laidlaw is now chairman and artistic director, Moira says that the small shows help to finance larger shows.

For many years the company had a useful seasonal show, What The Dickens. Well, he is the man for Christmas, isn’t he? “Yes,” says Moira. “And his descriptions are just so wonderful: he uses language like no one else, but don’t get me started. I just love him.”

While the Dickens show was very useful, the company wanted a different sort of show.

“We did Christmas Crackers a few years ago, but this is a new version,” says Richard. “But rather than just have a show with someone reading, we wanted to have more people on the stage, especially younger people.”

“Because without younger people the company wouldn’t have a future,” says Moira.

Looking further ahead, the company will perform Me And My Girl at Joseph Rowntree Theatre from April 9-13.

• For Christmas Cracker tickets phone 01347 878117.

For Ding Dong Merrily tickets, phone 01904 658338 for York tickets and 01374 822472 for Easingwold tickets.