Nativity!

A comedy set in a primary school in Coventry. Paul is a teacher. His girlfriend went to Los Angeles years ago and his life has stood still since. The school puts on a nativity play every year. The show at the private school across the way is an event in the city and they win every year. Paul is given an assistant. Mr Poppy is a classroom helper; he is thirty but more of a child than the children and obeys no rule. At a meeting Paul tells a lie. He tells the rival teacher that his former girlfriend works in Hollywood and is coming to see the play this year. Mr Poppy hears it and tells everyone. From there the film is a story about a lie growing. The papers write it up, the parents get excited, the children build a stage, and tickets are sold. Paul tries to correct it and cannot. In the end he decides to go to America and actually bring the woman back. What the narrative is interested in is not Christmas but a second chance: the film's real concern is a man being forced to reopen something he closed ten years ago. The children are the best thing in it. Most of the dialogue is improvised; the production used the script as a frame and built the scenes on what the children said. The result is untidy. The narrative goes very slack in places and the jokes repeat. Mr Poppy divides people. Some find him the film's engine, others find him unbearable. Martin Freeman, Marc Wootton, Ashley Jensen and Jason Watkins are in the cast. Debbie Isitt wrote and directed. Who it is for: families with children and anyone who likes British Christmas films. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a tidy comedy; the improvised structure scatters the film and the ending is entirely sentimental.