Nativity!

"You're through to the next round!"

"There is no next round."

Paul Maddens (Freeman) is a frustrated primary school teacher.  He used to dream about a career in acting or producing, but decided to teach instead.  His dreams were destroyed years before when the school nativity play that he wrote was lambasted by local critic Patrick Burns (Carr).  Now he hates Christmas and just tolerates his students.  His friend Gordon Shakespeare (Watkins) is the celebrated teach / director at the private school, who writes the best school nativity plays.

This year the prinicapl Mrs. Bevan (Ferris) puts Maddens in charge of the nativity and gives him a teaching assistant, Desmond Poppy (Wootton), to help with the show.  Poppy and the students are excited about the show and have lots of ideas.  When Maddens runs into Gordon, he claims that his girlfriend Jennifer Lore (Jensen) who is a big-time producer in America, is going to see his show and film it.  The story is a lie, Jennifer and Maddens haven't spoken in years and she isn't coming to to the show.  Soon the entire town hears the lie and excitement mounts.  Can Maddens and his show live up the excitement of the town and learn to love Christmas again?

All around the world children take part in nativity plays around this time of the year.  Debbie Isitt wrote this film (and also directed) after watching her daughter's school nativity play.  It is a cute little film, much better than the trailers.

The film takes time building up the nativity and the final part of the film is the actual nativity in it's entirety.  You hear snippets of the songs and see parts of the dances earlier in the film, but it was fun to see the entire production (complete with behind the scenes disasters).  There are 6 songs in the nativity, and all are toe-tapping and infectious: "Nazareth", "One Look", "Sparkle and Shine" (my favorite song), "She's the Brightest Star", "One Night, One Moment", and "Good News".  You can find all of the songs on YouTube.

Martin Freeman is cute as Mr. Maddens.  He starts stern, but you grow to love him over the film.  Marc Wootton is funny as Mr. Poppy and all of the kids are adorable (and talented).

This film did well enough for Isitt to make 2 sequels: Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger (starring David Tennant) and Nativity 3: Dude, Where's My Donkey (starring Martin Clunes).  The only character to appear in all 3 films is Wootton's Mr. Poppy.  I haven't had a chance to see (or find) the sequels yet, but I'm excited to see them!

Nativity! (2009) 105 minutes
Director: Debbie Isitt
Starring: Martin Freeman as Paul Maddens
Jason Watkins as Gordon Shakespeare
Ashely Jensen as Jennifer Lore
Marc Wootton as Desmond Poppy
Alan Carr as Patrick Burns
Ricky Tomlinson as The Mayor
Pam Ferris as Mrs. Bevan