BBC's "The Nativity" Reviewed

Well, I've now watched the last of the four episodes of the BBC/CBC production of "The Nativity".

I thought it was a splendid, straightforward telling of one of the best known stories in human history. It didn't try to be clever, it didn't try to rationalise and significantly it didn't try to preach. It simply - yet with breathtakingly vivid "colour" - told the story pretty much as we've all seen it in a thousand school nativity plays. Great television great storytelling.

Not that the Daily Express seems to think so. They have somehow convinced themselves that it's insulting to Christians, which rather suggests that they've either watched a different production to the one I've seen or else they're being sensationalist for the sake of it. I couldn't possibly comment on which of these possibilities is the more likely.

Although I don't often talk about God, I am indeed a Christian and - despite a few, very few, differences with the Gospels in the narrative here - I wasn't even remotely offended. Indeed, I was distinctly moved by it (not to mention entertained) and pleased to see it go out as part of the Christmastime schedule.

If you wonder what it's all about and you're in the UK it's on the iPlayer. If you're in Canada, it's on CBC Television as a single two hour film tonight at 8.00pm.