'My makeover at Santa’s workshop'

“Ho! ho! hooooo!,” I boom, resting my hands on the Santa bod a false belly has gifted me. “Excellent,” he says. “Really, quite a natural. Now, show me your twinkliest eyes.” It’s impossible not to warm to the ebullient Lovell, who deserves an OBE for dedicated pursuit of jollity alone. His tuition is rigorous. Over an hour and a half I commit the names of Father Christmas’s reindeer to memory by rote and am taught how to ace the tricky Lapland versus North Pole “gotcha” question: Santa’s home is in the North Pole, his factory in Lapland, and don’t savvy children know it. I am also run through the cardinal rules: in addition to thorough background checks, there’s strictly no lap-sitting.

It’s a popular gig. “On a financial level you make more working for us than you do in a pantomime, and there’s much less travelling away from London, which is great for actors with families,” he says.

Lovell first played an elf 23 years ago, before setting up the Ministry of Fun to corner the market in playing and training a Santa for every grotto. “It’s all about creating the magic.” The training requires some elastic thinking: in mine, Lovell plays the part of three children, of increasing obstreperousness, and I am instructed to desperately try to keep the magic alive. This isn’t easy.

“So, um, James, where do you live?” I ask in my most booming voice, unwittingly betraying my lack of magical powers and possibly breaching GDPR. Lovell walks me through ways to keep the conversation going even if the child is too shy to talk. “Bear in mind you are an enormous red stranger, so never have your mouth hidden beneath your beard — it’s disconcerting.” There are useful jokes to crack. “They’ve already written their letter to Santa, so you’re meant to have read it — pretend you’ve muddled it with your shopping list and enquire if they’ve asked for red cabbage for Christmas.” Pratfalls can aid you, while pitfalls can be ruinous. There are helpful ways to draw the conversation to a close, too. “Never imply that you’re tired of the child’s company, say you’ve heard a hoof on the roof and need to head upstairs to feed the reindeer,” Lovell says. “If they want to come too, kindly say that the reindeer are shy, but ask if they’ll leave out a carrot cut into nine pieces on Christmas Eve. And crack a joke with Dad if he’s there about leaving out something to help with the cold.”

I try at the end of our next scenario. “You sounded too desperate for a drink,” says Lovell, “it’s meant to be medicinal, not about driving under the influence.”

Invention is crucial, says Lovell. “Stay in character, be magical, and improvise because no matter how many rehearsals you do, the next child will ask for something different. Be supremely confident, and supremely jolly.” But there are moments even Lovell struggles with. “There’s always a child who will ask if mummy can get better for Christmas,” says Lovell, his eyes misting slightly. “You are reminded that this is a very human holiday. And at that moment you just have to be as kind as you can be, without promising anything that can’t be done.”

Not everyone’s cut out to be Santa. He had to fail reality TV star Joey Essex. “I’ve failed hardly anyone in 22 years, but he was terrible. He was a lovely bloke [but] he fancied one of the elves and he kept mucking about asking for her number.” Do you get any female Santas, I ask? “It’s a very male-dominated industry,” says Lovell. I wonder if a December election has drained people of their seasonal bonhomie.

“It’s strange,” says Lovell, “because demand is actually surging. I genuinely think everyone’s really fed up.” What about me? Perfect? “You’d pass,” says Lovell, promising me a certificate to prove my credentials. I’m a competent Santa on paper, then. But could I do it on a wet and windy Christmas night in Stoke Newington?