After the surprise success of Nativity, which combined Debbie Isitt’s trademark improv techniques with a cute “kids-do-the-funniest-things” gag, Nativity 2 took the franchise from Coventry to Wales and proceeded to strangle it to death in a rural manger. Somewhat baffling, then, that a third instalment should now be upon us, this time venturing from London to New York with an already outdated “flashmob” USP and much grisly gurning from all involved. “I create a story,” explains Isitt, “but I don’t show it to the cast.” Good job, too – if anyone saw a plot synopsis for this bewildering hotchpotch of transatlantic memory loss and public dancing they’d run a mile. Instead, Martin Clunes and Catherine Tate are left to make sense of the chaos, while Marc Wootton’s slappable Mr Poppy once again inexplicably evades the long arm of the law. I can’t speak for the kids at whom it is aimed, but as an adult I’d rather stay in and watch a CBBC Chuckle Brothers marathon.
