Nativity! producer reveals winning Christmas movie formula that made it a modern classic
The best Christmas movies are the ones we want to watch every year and Nativity!, produced by Nick Jones (1992), has become one of the nation’s festive favourites.
Now a staple of Christmas TV scheduling, Nativity! and its three sequels succeeds where plenty of Hollywood attempts at Yuletide stories have left audiences cold.
It tells the story of heartbroken teacher Paul Maddens (Martin Freeman) who has been put in charge of directing his school’s Nativity play and falsely boasts that his ex-girlfriend, who now works in Hollywood, plans to turn the production into a film. Events spiral hilariously out of control as people believe his lie.
Here Nick discusses the ingredients he believes have led to the film’s longevity. He also talks about his career journey since leaving St John’s with a degree in Law and how he forged his own path to movie success through determination, some calculated risk taking, and being prepared to sweep up elephant dung.
Why has Nativity! become a Christmas favourite?
It’s funny and big-hearted with sympathetic characters and a compelling story that works on several levels. Audiences enjoy the classic under-dog, rom-com and traditional Christmas elements. There’s something for everyone: kids love Mr Poppy and adults relate to Mr Maddens’ story. It was a box office hit on release in 2009 and has been on TV for years but I realised its growing popularity following lockdown when my niece, who was a university student, told me it was trending on TikTok. She showed me there were about 85,000 videos of people performing She’s the Brightest Star, one of the original songs from the first Nativity!. I thought, “What’s going on here?”. It kept growing in the lead up to Christmas. I mentioned this to Debbie (Isitt, the director) and she did her own TikTok and got around five million views. It exploded from there.
Last year we did some research and found there were over four billion impressions on social media for Nativity!-related material. It sits in Netflix’s top 10 movies in the UK for every year and we’ve just re-licenced it to BBC TV. It’s taken on a life of its own. This is partly driven by nostalgia of the TikTok generation, who grew up with the film, and it’s become a shared Christmas tradition, but there are also new audiences discovering it every year.
What are the ingredients of a hit Christmas movie?
We all know the formulaic elements – the comforting traditions and themes of returning home, family reunions, broken hearts mended, reconciliations, the Christmas soundtracks, the snow and so on, but whether audiences embrace the film depends on how these familiar themes are handled.
Nativity!’s appeal was down to Debbie Isitt’s (the writer/director) vision, talent and understanding of the audience, along with the quality of the actors and kids she worked with to deliver such authentic performances. The relatability of the characters and that special mix of comedy, tradition, heart, original songs – and great editing – made it stand out. There’s a certain amount of magic involved but if you can make people laugh, make them cry and get them to sing along, you’re onto something.
Did you realise it would be a hit from the start?
No one really knows if a movie is going to work. We were sitting in Debbie’s kitchen in Coventry when she told me this idea that was inspired by her daughter’s primary school nativity play. It wasn’t immediately a no brainer for me because I didn’t initially see that it would have such a wide multi-generational audience. But Debbie is generally a few steps ahead of everybody else and it takes them a while to catch up!
We developed the story a bit and took the idea to BBC Films, who had already made Confetti with us, and they loved it. Just like our previous film, it was going to be unscripted and partly improvised. BBC came on board but we also had to convince other financiers.
Debbie suggested we film a promo of some scenes with kids at a Coventry primary school and ask Martin Freeman to be their teacher with Marc Wootton, who’d had a small role in Confetti, as his crazy classroom assistant. She wanted to get them in a classroom and see what happened. So we filmed it and when we watched the footage we knew it was going to be good.
What convinced you the film was going to work?
Debbie creates a world that people recognise and relate to and then transports you somewhere beyond. It’s comedic, it’s stylised, it’s magical, but it is also emotionally truthful. It was this blend of classic storytelling, authentic emotion and comedy, along with catchy songs and really strong performances – particularly in the chemistry between ‘straight man’ Martin and ‘funny man’ Marc, and between them and the children.
They’re not only exceptionally funny, but some of Martin’s scenes are tear jerking. And they’re working with kids who aren’t super polished because it’s part-improvised – though under tight direction from Debbie – and that brings a spontaneous and authentic emotional experience, allowing audiences to really connect with the characters. We saw this in the joyful reactions at the test screenings we did with hundreds of primary school children and their teachers.
How did you get into making films?
I dabbled a little bit in student filmmaking but there was no obvious way to turn that into a career. I’d read Law at St John’s but I knew I didn’t want to go straight into a corporate law office. My aunt in London introduced me to a good friend of hers who was a commercials director. I asked if he would give me a job after I’d finished university and he said no because I knew absolutely nothing about the industry and was no use to him. That was a tough lesson!
How did you get your break?
After graduating, I sent out hundreds of CVs and even knocked on Merchant Ivory’s door asking for a job, with no luck. I was so naïve. Eventually a commercials producer offered me some work at studios in King’s Cross. I had no money and was desperate. I arrived at this huge sound stage and was handed a broom. The production manager took me into a studio and – I’m not making this up – pointed to an elephant. You can guess what my job was with the broom. At the end of the day I was given a £20 note. This was when you could buy a pint for a pound, and I thought I thought, “Wow, I’m a professional runner in the film business”.
What were your next steps?
I ran around getting everyone sandwiches and worked on the reception desk of a busy commercials production company. They had 12 directors who were working all the time making commercials for huge advertising agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi and Ogilvy & Mather. In those days, commercials production was very lucrative, so they could afford to spend vast amounts on these shoots, with the best equipment and facilities.
I didn’t love it and it was really hard work, but I was learning all of the technical and practical stuff about filmmaking while working in commercials. In those days everything was shot on 35mm film and the company had a garage full of leftover film stock which they generously let me use to make short films with friends who were budding film directors. And after about 18 months I’d made about 4 or 5 short films. In the meantime, I’d been promoted to production manager, so I was helping run the commercial film shoots.
How did you move on from making commercials?
I had become disillusioned and was about to return to law and work in a big City law firm when I got a call from one of the commercials directors who knew I’d been making these short films on my own time. He asked if I would produce a short film for him. I turned him down and confessed I was about to quit. He then offered to start a production company with me instead. I was 24 and he said he had enough startup money to run the company for 4 years. I agreed and declined the job I’d been offered as a trainee solicitor. It was a baptism of fire.
After three years there making commercials, pop videos and some documentaries – while also trying to develop feature films – I left the company to go freelance and travel the world producing historical documentaries, including one with Ted Danson about Atlantis.
What was your big break into feature films?
I was introduced to a producer who had a project without a script. He told me about a director who had come to see him with an idea for a wedding comedy and asked if I would meet her to see if the project was feasible.
By this point I had a lot of production experience. I met with the director and she was an absolute creative force. She pitched this movie idea for a mock documentary about a wedding competition. After the meeting, Ian, the producer, asked whether I thought the film could be made. I told them I didn’t have all the answers to that, but that this woman was brilliant and that they should back the project. To their credit, they did. That was Debbie Isitt, who became my partner at Mirrorball Films. I was brought on board as a co-producer, and that project became a film called Confetti, with Martin Freeman, Olivia Colman, Stephen Mangan and Jimmy Carr.
What advice would you give someone trying to break into the film industry?
It depends which sector of the industry you’re trying to break into as there are many routes in. If it’s a technical job you need to become a trainee or apprentice to learn the craft. Try to get in and gain experience by any means you can, because no one is going to do it for you – don’t wait for permission. You need a tremendous amount of drive as it’s mostly a freelance world. It’s also very hard – I know people who come from showbiz families and their kids have not managed to carve out a career in the business. So sometimes even nepotism doesn’t work!
If I had played it really safe, and stuck with my corporate law job, I probably still would have ended up coming into the business through different route, like law or finance. If you want to be a film producer you do need to be able to read a contract and understand finance, but it all starts with creatives because without relationships with writers and directors, you’re not producing anything.
What’s next for you?
Debbie and I have a TV series in development with BBC. Debbie’s been doing a lot of stage musicals and we’re looking at turning some of those into films. We have a couple of movies coming down the pipe, which we have distributors attached to. Putting films together is a house of cards, because you need all of these things to come together at the same time: money, actors, crew, weather, locations. But hopefully next year we’ll be in production and back in the Midlands too.