A Christmas Gift: Nuffield theatre, Southampton, Sunday December 10

Many families see Christmas as a bit of chore to be endured once every 12 months. Few actively enjoy spending time together and fewer still would choose to work with each other during the preceding weeks.

But that's just what actress Dame Dorothy Tutin and her husband Derek Waring are doing this year.

Along with their son Nick, daughter Amanda and her husband Robert, they will be performing their show, A Christmas Gift, at the Nuffield Theatre on Sunday.

"We were trying to work out, by committee, what we should do but everybody had different ideas. Then my daughter, Amanda, compiled this and found a rehearsal venue," says Dorothy.

A Gift of Christmas is a celebration of the festive season from this family of thespians who perform the work of such luminaries from the worlds of entertainment and literature as Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward and Charles Dickens - with music, song and verse.

"The best way I can describe it, is to say it is woven like a tapestry," says Dorothy.

"What Amanda has done is very clever - nothing goes on for too long."

The music is provided by concert pianist Christine Cawshaw and flautist Clive Conway. Dorothy says her family all play the piano, but not on stage.

If, like me, you have a mental image of the entire Waring clan gathering around the Christmas tree at home and having a knees-up, you'll be disappointed.

"Oh, no - definitely not," says a shocked Dorothy.

"That's far too much like work. We don't even play charades."

Dorothy Tutin, is probably better known for her leading roles in Shakespearian productions, and has won both the Olivier Award and the Evening Standard Award for Best Actress (twice). Her most memorable television performance to date was alongside Robert Lindsay and Julie Walters in Alan Bleasdale's production Jake's Progess and recently she starred in the West End with Joss Ackland in The Gin Game, which came to the Nuffield Theatre earlier this year.

Her husband Derek Waring is a veteran of both the West End and TV. Daughter Amanda Waring has played the lead in several stage musicals and has appeared in episodes of Casualty and All Creatures Great and Small.

Amanda's husband Robert Daws has also had roles in numerous television series, most recently as Sam Mountjoy in the BBC comedy drama Roger, Roger.

Nick Waring has several theatre credits to his name and has appeared on TV in London's Burning, The Bill and as Rupert the Yuppie in Harry Enfield and Chums.

A talented family indeed, but do they always get on so well?

"Yes, surprisingly, perhaps, we do. We're not at all temperamental and we are very patient with each other," says Dorothy.

"And we'll all be spending Christmas together."