Nativity

PLOT

Paul Maddens is a teacher at St Bernadette's Catholic primary school in Coventry. Paul once had ambitions of being successful as an actor, producer or director. Every year St Bernadette's competes with Oakmoor, a local Protestant private school, to see who can produce the best nativity play.

Paul hates Christmas because his girlfriend at drama school, Jennifer Lore, broke up with him at Christmas time. His headteacher, Mrs Bevan, tasks him with running their nativity play, and gives him a new teaching assistant named Mr Poppy, who turns out to be more of a child than the students.

Paul's rival from drama school, Gordon Shakespeare, runs the nativity plays at Oakmoor. Determined not to be seen as a failure, Paul lies to Shakespeare about how a Hollywood producer, Jennifer, will be turning his production into a Hollywood film (though he hasn't spoken to her in five years). Mr Poppy overhears this and is so excited that he spreads the story to the press. Paul finds his lie is out of control, and all he can do is go along with it as media attention mounts and the children get very excited.

The children are nowhere near as talented as the Oakmoor students, and Paul has little confidence in their abilities. The enthusiastic Mr. Poppy helps him and the class to create an energetic, interesting nativity which showcases all of the children's unique (and often strange) talents.

Paul tries to contact Jennifer to make the lie come true, even travelling to America to persuade her to visit. It turns out that she is only the secretary to a film producer, and he returns home disappointed.

Amid continuing media attention and the Mayor's kind offer to allow the play to be performed in the historical ruins of Coventry Cathedral, Mrs Bevans discovers that the Hollywood story was a lie and cancels the play, advising Paul to start looking for another job and firing Mr.Poppy in the process. This causes Paul to snap at Mr Poppy about everything going wrong, but he comes to his senses when facing his disappointed class and decides that the show must go on.

The play is performed at the cathedral to an audience of the children's parents and family friends. The production is amazingly good, to the surprise of everyone involved. Halfway through, Gordon climbs on stage to tell everybody that there is nobody from Hollywood there and the entire story was a lie. Luckily, a helicopter flies over and Mr Poppy declares that it's Hollywood arriving; the show continues, and Jennifer and her producer indeed appear at the back to watch. Paul joins them and, still in love, kisses Jennifer. The play ends with everyone, including Gordon and Mrs Bevans (who has a change of heart), reunited onstage to celebrate the children's success.

As the film closes, Paul and Jennifer are shown decorating his house together for Christmas, reunited at last.

CAST

Martin Freeman as Paul Maddens

Marc Wootton as Desmond Poppy

Jason Watkins as Gordon Shakespeare

Ashley Jensen as Jennifer Lore

Alan Carr as Patrick Burns

Ricky Tomlinson as The Mayor.

John Sessions as Mr Lore.

Pam Ferris as Mrs Patricia Bevan

Clarke Peters as Mr Parker

Geoffrey Hutchings as Father Tom.

Rosie Cavaliero as Miss Rye.

Ashley Blake - himself

Alexandra Allen as Cleo

Adeste McLeod as Grace

Ben Wilby as Bob

Anna Price as Ellen

Bernard Mensah as TJ

Arun Nahar as Jake

Brandon McDonald as Oli

Bessie Cursons as Christy

Cadi Mullane as Crystal

Bethany Carter as Daisy

Caitlin Cronin as Lucy

Charlie Dixon as Thomas

Dominic McKernan as Dan

Cherie Ng as Nicola

Ellie Coldicutt as Beth

Eleanor Bonas as Rachel

Faye Dolan as Jade

Francesca York as Caroline

James Warner as Buddy

Freddie Watkins as Sebastian

Jake Pratt as Alfie

Georgina Owen as Emily

Joe Lane as Edward

Hannah Ciotknowski as Elizabeth

Joshan Patel as Bill

Harriet Kilner as Charlotte

Krista Hyatt as Becky

Hayley Downing as Victoria

Maeve Dolan as Sam

Imogen Stern as Phoebe

Michael McAuley as William

Katie Maguire as Megan

Milly Webb as Neve

Katie Stafford as Molly

Morgan Brennan as Charlotte

Lauren Downing as Joanne

Rebecca Maguire as Saffron

Lily-Rose Sharry as Lynette

Reece Stowe as Fraser

Michael Brown as Charles

Rhyannon Jones as Alice

Molly Burton as Catherine

Sam Tott as Matt

Mi Tuulikki Kelly as Lorna

Sydney Isitt-Ager as Sadie

Safiya Asharia as Sophie

Thomas McGaritty as Zack

Salim Zayyan as Percival

Oscar Steer as Billy

Behrad Koohy as Harry

Harvey Flanagan as Tyrese

Chris Reynolds as Freddy