Christmas Actually: Richard Curtis announces festive stage show

Love Actually writer and director Richard Curtis has announced a brand new Christmas show, which will come to the stage in London this December.

Christmas Actually is not an adaptation of his beloved festive film, which was released in 2003.

Instead, it will be a variety show in aid of Comic Relief, featuring live music, performance, poetry and comedy.

Curtis told BBC News: "We hope it'll be a real chocolate box - or perhaps advent calendar - of delights."

The writer and director will curate the show, and said audiences could expect it to be "noisy and emotional and full of surprises and jokes, with some proper celebrity sparkle".

Christmas Actually will run for eight performances at the Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall from 7-11 December. Tickets will go on sale at 10:00 BST on Wednesday.

"I remember I didn't always love the Christmas shows I took my children to, but I always took them to one," Curtis said. "So we thought it would be fun to make a show for Christmas that really is fun for all the family.

"And then the idea of doing it also to raise money for Comic Relief made the idea irresistible."

He added: "We hope to cram a wealth of wonder into 90 noisy minutes. I suspect some members of the audience will go away with presents they weren't expecting; there'll definitely be some rowdy singing along and some unexpected famous people will pop up on the screens and even in person."

Details of the stars who may appear in the show are being kept under wraps - at least for now.

As a screenwriter, Curtis's credits include Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary and Yesterday, as well as TV sitcoms Blackadder and The Vicar of Dibley.

He also directed The Boat That Rocked, About Time and Love Actually - all three of which he also wrote the screenplays for.

The 66-year-old also co-founded Comic Relief, which supports projects that tackle poverty, alongside comedian Lenny Henry and the BBC.

"My strongest memory of Christmas, when I was young, was one year when my mother 'cancelled Christmas' and we gave all the cash we might have spent on presents and food to help with the famine in Biafra," he recalled. "But it was still a great Christmas."

He said he wanted audiences to feel the same.

"I'm hoping that people will have a really great time - but also be part of supporting brilliant Comic Relief projects changing people's lives, at home and abroad."

The variety show will unfold against a backdrop of live illustrations by some well-known artists.

A live band will play classic Christmas songs (presumably including Christmas Is All Around) while a string of actors and other well-known personalities will deliver poetry, Christmas cracker jokes and children's letters to Santa.

Performers will also revisit real-life stories such as the World War One Christmas Truce and the Band Aid charity singles.