The most practical of all the Spiritus Statua, Drum Major Sherbet takes his responsibilities at Christmas very seriously. From ensuring the candy canes on the gingerbread house do not lose shape or taste (due to children secretly licking them in between performances) to repairing the jammy dodger roof tiles (pigeons love nibbling the biscuit base), the Drum Major literally keeps “the show on the road” for the whole company, he is borderline neurotic about making plans and schedules so you may spot him nipping in and out of WH Smiths for filofax refills, notebooks and pens!

He is seen very much as the father figure of the troupe, and this means that very often he has to solve problems at the drop of a hat. He doesn’t mind as he prides himself on being organised and practical, but sometimes he can come across as bossy and a bit too clever for his own boots. Which incidentally, are Barkers from Charles Ager. For example, one year he caught the Sugar Plum Curators nipping off to the Odeon in the Skydome to watch Die Hard 4 without letting him know where they were going and when they would be back. This irritated him so much that he put them under curfew, which as you can imagine did not go down well.  As a result they glued his lollipop drumsticks to his liquorice allsorts drum and it took him four hours and a lot of elbow grease to prise them off.

The Drum Major may be wonderful at being practical and organised, but when it comes to buying Christmas presents for the troupe, that is another matter altogether. Like a lot of men, he leaves everything to the last minute and this can have disastrous consequences. Last year, for example, after the final performance, Bertram literally had thirty minutes on Christmas Eve to purchase presents for his fellow performers. He admits, rather sheepishly that he got in a bit of a flap and ended up buying everyone identical socks in the same size and colour. As you can imagine, this did not go down too well with the troupe, who had all clubbed together and bought him a state of the art, all singing, all dancing screwdriver set from Argos – something he had set his heart on all year.

The Drum Major, like Anastasia the Snow Queen, takes great pride in his appearance and likes to look well turned out whenever he is out in public. He admits that even though he loves receiving practical gifts, one of his secret joys is testing out all the men’s aftershaves in the Perfume Shop in West Orchards. At the moment he is torn between Calvin Klein and Diesel, but to be honest, anything would do, so long as it wasn’t Old Spice.

This year Bertram has decided he will be organised on the Christmas present front, although he may need some help from the people in Coventry. If anyone has any suggestions about where he can find lovely, individual presents for his fellow performers, then he would be very grateful. But please, can people make sure they tell him exactly what shop to go into, what floor the gift is on, and how much it is. Bertram may be practical, but when it comes to buying presents, he will need to treat this exercise like a military campaign otherwise it will be socks again this year for everyone, and we wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?