Today, Louise Mair will be starring as Mary in Scotland’s answer to the epic passion plays of York and Oberammergau in Germany.

She is one of the residents of Lochiehead, in Fife, where for the past 11 years villagers have performed the nativity with a 30-strong cast, live animals and an all-teething, all-crying baby.

Mrs Mair, a computer studies teacher at Auchterarder school, said: “I thought I could just be a picture postcard Mary - then I found I had a few more lines. Then I found I had to ride a donkey across a dark field in a spotlight. I do my lines, Gabriel tells me I am going to have a son, the spotlight goes off me, and I have to run down to the furthest corner of the building in flowing robes and wellies and jump on the back of the donkey where Joseph is waiting for me.”

Photograph: Chris James