Nativity (U)

You thought that after Hammer closed the British film industry had given up on horror: you hadn't sat through this pathetic comedy about a no-hope primary school which, for reasons too contrived and unconvincing to relate, becomes convinced that Hollywood casting agents coming to this year's nativity play.

Even in outline, the plot wouldn't pass muster as an episode of a CBBC drama, but its various twists and turns and grotesque emotional idiocies are engineered through some of the most wooden dialogue I've ever heard.

It relies for most of its laughs on Marc Wootton, playing the hilariously named Desmond Poppy; even more bizarrely, the cast is led by Martin Freeman and Ashley Jensen, with Pam Ferris and Ricky Tomlinson roped in along the way. Just thinking about it gives me the shudders.