Nativity film review & trailer - Starring Martin Freeman, Marc Wootton, Ricky Tomlinson and Pam Ferris

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Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the film is that a lot of the scenes were improvised. With the majority of the cast being children, this must have been both a struggle and a lot of fun for the grown up actors, including Martin Freeman as the love lost, moody teacher of the class putting on the nativity and the brilliant Marc Wootton as the idiot/genius teacher’s assistant who has some of the best lines of the film (most of them probably improvised).

With a solid performance from Ricky Tomlinson as the Lord Mayor and some great acting moments from Ashley Jensen, of Extras fame, as Freeman’s long lost girlfriend and Pam Ferris (Ma Larkin) as the Head Teacher, Nativity is the best Christmas film I’ve seen since A Nightmare Before Christmas.

The only downside is that it has caught onto the populist comedy concept of glorifying chavs as the voice of the working class and vilifying intelligence as the voice of the elite. It doesn’t really leave much room for people that grew up in poverty with half an ounce of brains.

3.8/5

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Nativity film review - An improvised classic

I’d planned to take my nephews and nieces to see Where the Wild Things Are just after Christmas for my eldest nieces birthday, but they all rebelled against me and managed to persuade me to take them to see Nativity instead. It turned out to be a good call, because I hadn’t even heard about it and probably wouldn’t have seen it’s part scripted part improvised genius if it hadn’t been for them.