The Nativity | |
---|---|
Genre | Religious drama |
Written by | Tony Jordan |
Directed by | Coky Giedroyc |
Starring | |
Composer | Jonathan Goldsmith |
Country of origin | |
No. of episodes | 4 |
Production | |
Producer | Ruth Kenley-Letts |
Running time | 30 minutes (approx.) |
Production companies |
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Original release | |
Network | |
Release | 20 December – 23 December 2010 |
Related | |
The Passion |
The Nativity is a 2010 British four-part drama television series. The series is a re-telling of the Nativity of Jesus and was broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD across four days, starting on 20 December 2010. It was rebroadcast in two hour-long parts on the mornings of 24 and 25 December 2011 and across four days starting on 19 December 2016.
The series stars Tatiana Maslany as Mary; Andrew Buchan as Joseph; Neil Dudgeon as Joachim; Claudie Blakley as Anna; Peter Capaldi as Balthasar; and John Lynch as Gabriel.
Tony Jordan started writing the script in 2007. At the time, he did not believe in the Nativity story, but said that since writing The Nativity, his opinion changed. He was asked to produce the series after discussing new projects with BBC Wales in Cardiff, but his meeting got mixed up with another, where they wanted to create a follow-up to The Passion . Jordan was asked what he would do with the Nativity and he pitched what he called a "ridiculous notion" of a story centred on the Inn in Bethlehem, which he compared to the BBC 1980s sitcom 'Allo 'Allo! . Jordan forgot about the idea but received a telephone call from the BBC a week later asking him to produce a script. [1]
Filming lasted a month and took place in Ouarzazate, Morocco. [2] Capaldi, Shepherd and Abili almost missed filming due to air travel disruption after the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. [3]
The first episode was watched by 5.21 million viewers, an audience share of 20.3%. [4]
Sam Wollaston of The Guardian praised the series, saying: "[W]hat is nice about this new telling of an old story: it will resonate, and it's relevant. It's very human, too, because that's what it's about, the characters and what happens to them and between them, rather than the message. In short, it's not preachy, and that's a relief." [5]
Bethlehem is a city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestine, located about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) south of Jerusalem. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate, and has a population of approximately 25,000 people. The city's economy is largely tourist-driven; international tourism peaks around and during Christmas, when Christians embark on a pilgrimage to the Church of the Nativity, revered as the location of the Nativity of Jesus.
In the Christian tradition, a nativity scene is the special exhibition, particularly during the Christmas season, of art objects representing the birth of Jesus. While the term "nativity scene" may be used of any representation of the very common subject of the Nativity of Jesus in art, it has a more specialized sense referring to seasonal displays, in particular sets of individual sculptural figures and props that are arranged for display.
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The Nativity of Jesus has been a major subject of Christian art since the 4th century.
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