HARRY Potter-style glasses, a few well chosen Quality Streets and an enormous trampoline were essential ingredients in an innovative nativity story captured on film in Whitchurch last weekend.

The Nativity — The Movie II featured more than 30 children drawn from the local Sunday, pre-school and primary schools and was the brainchild of Whitchurch curate the Rev Andrew Williams.

Filming, complete with hired equipment, cabling and a scaffold tower, took place in fantastic December weather and the piece has now been edited professionally in Exeter.

'It went absolutely brilliantly,' said Andrew. 'Last year was good — but this year is really special.'

In the film, a recreated Roman-occupied Bethlehem market bustles with shoppers and traders.

'Great quantities of Quality Streets were hidden — basically the children were looking for them but on film, it looks like they were choosing apples!' said Andrew.

'To make the Kings look wise they all had to wear glasses, and Angus McPhie supplied us with three sets of Harry Potter-style glasses,' he said.

'We even really got the angels airborne — with the aid of an Olympic-sized trampoline!'

The film featured a ten-week old baby as Jesus who yawned at exactly the right moment, and apart from being pleasant for filming, the weather played a key role.

Andrew said: 'The stable scene was beautiful — and Mary with the baby were just lit with this bar of sunlight which shone down on them. It was amazing.'

Nativity — The Movie II will be shown at St Andrew's Church in Whitchurch at 4.30pm and 6.15pm on Christmas Eve.