Nativity!
Director: Debbie Isitt
The first thing that has to be said about Nativity!, director Debbie Isitt’s latest improvised ensemble comedy, is that it is an entertaining crowd-pleaser. The premise, about a failed actor turned frustrated Coventry primary school teacher, Paul Maddens (Martin Freeman), whose fraudulent claim to local rival Gordon Shakespeare (Jason Watkins) that his new nativity production has “attracted the interest of Hollywood”, is a cue for some enjoyable infant high jinks.
Paul’s passing remark that his ex-girlfriend Jennifer (Ashley Jenson), who decamped to Los Angeles (much as the actress playing her did in real life), will return to Coventry accompanied by Hollywood producers, is interpreted by naive teaching assistant Mr Poppy (Marc Wootton) as reality. He tells the children and the lie snowballs out of control. Parents want to know about money. The Mayor (Ricky Tomlinson) offers Coventry Cathedral as a venue. Mr Poppy takes the children to a field trip to a local maternity unit for “research” and promises them a “death slide”, although not at the same location. Meanwhile, Gordon marshals his brood of talented private school children in a production of “Herod – The Musical” to get a five-star review from the local critic (Alan Carr).
Yet, as I wiped away my tears after the winning show-must-go-on finale, I could not help but feel the subject should have treated more critically. I winced as Paul denounced his mixed group of pupils as “no hopers”. Surely no primary school teacher could get away with this in modern Britain? Such a remark would be followed by a lawsuit. More importantly, Isitt should have addressed the dangers of teaching kids to be X-Factor contestants, as if this were the only life choice.
The uncritical treatment of artistic expression as a substitute for manufacturing began 10 years ago with Billy Elliot, in which a boy found dignity in ballet shoes as the mining industry collapsed. Ten years on and Britain has cultivated a karaoke culture, producing children who want to sing like established artists rather than in their own voices. The talent show represents the homogenisation of culture. Stifling difference is a way of stifling debate.
What Isitt and her collaborators choose not to focus on – the nativity as a resettlement story and the marginal role of Christianity in British society – is more relevant than what she offers as entertainment. This consists of a disjunction between form and content, represented by a seven-year-old performing “Teenage Dirtbag”. The film normalises the treatment of children as miniature adults, as if a lack of distinguishing features were inevitable. I want to recommend Nativity!
for its slick manipulative spirit and the pleasure it gives to the audience, but I know it is fundamentally wrong.
Patrick Mulcahy
