Mr Poppy

Mr Poppy
Nativity (film series) character
First appearance	"Nativity!" 2009
Last appearance	Nativity 3: Dude, Where's my donkey? 2014
Portrayed by	Marc Wootton
Information
Full name	Desmond Poppy
Occupation	Teaching Assistant
Family	Mrs Bevan (Aunt) Jerry (Brother)

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Desmond Poppy is a fictional and predominant character who features in the popular family movie series Nativity, directed by Debbie Isitt. The series follows multiple storylines set within the Christmas and holiday season, and Poppy often adopts the role of the main or secondary protagonist in each film. Poppy is a recurring character in the first three films of the Nativity series, with the final film being the only one for him not to feature, instead focusing on a storyline concerning his brother Jerry Poppy. At the beginning of the first film, Poppy becomes a teaching assistant at St. Bernadette's primary school, appointed by Headteacher Mrs Bevan, Pam Ferris, despite having no previous experience in teaching or with children; however, it is later revealed that this is due to nepotism via the fact Desmond is Mrs Bevan's nephew.

Within each individual film Nativity (film series), he attempts to establish an amicable relationship with the new teacher, be that Mr Maddens, Mr Peterson or Mr Shepherd and also subsequently develops a rivalry with an alternative character, 'Gordon Shakespeare' head of local competition, Oakmoor School. However, this rivalry dulls as the series progresses, becoming more friendly with each other. Mr Poppy is seen as a determined character, and actively encourages the students to pursue his fun and wacky ideas; consequently, he and the students seek to achieve what they set out to do in each movie by any means necessary. As a result of this, Mr Poppy puts the children through some dangerous and high risk situations not to be expected of a typical primary school teaching assistant, which could have been exacerbated further if not for more sensible and appropriate teachers such as Mr Maddens.

However, Poppy does develop as an individual throughout the series. You can see his character development through, for example, being a parental substitute in the third film to Lauren (Mr Shepherd's daughter) when he loses his memory, and in the first film where he actively ignores Mrs Bevan's refusal of entry into the 'Song for Christmas competition' in order to ensure that the children were no longer unhappy, showing whilst he may lack impulse control, and often does not care if his ideas are rejected, he has strong moral principles surrounding loyalty and caring for others, which makes him a great companion for the children that they feel able to confide in.

Appearances

Nativity! (2009)

Primary school teacher Paul Maddens, is still in love with his ex-girlfriend Jennifer, despite her moving to and them having no contact. Mrs Bevan, headteacher of St Bernadette's, gives Maddens the role of running their school nativity play, adding that he also has a new teaching assistant named Mr Poppy to help him with this, despite Poppy's lack of experience in teaching. However, Maddens discovers that this is because Desmond is Bevan's nephew. When purchasing a Christmas tree with Poppy, Maddens runs into long-term rival 'Gordon Shakespeare' whom runs the Nativity play at local private school Oakmoor. In order to boast and appear more successful, Paul lies, explaining how Jennifer and other Hollywood producers would be coming to film the nativity play he is putting on. Poppy overhears and informs the children and the school, unknown to Maddens until he arrives the next morning. Maddens reacts angrily to Poppy, pinning him against the wall and saying this was clearly made up and "obviously a lie". He orders Mr Poppy to break the news to the children, teachers and press, to which he is unable to do and the story continues to live on.

This, in turn, forces the two men to attempt to put on a nativity play worthy of a visit from a Hollywood film company. Paul has little faith in the St. Bernadette's students' abilities in comparison to Oakmoor students. Mr Poppy puts forward many interesting and daring ideas to create an unusual Nativity in which all of the students are able to feel as though they have made a contribution.

Mr Maddens even catches a flight to Hollywood to ask for his ex-girlfriend's help but finds out she was never a producer herself, instead, a secretary to a producer. Maddens takes two younger children on the flight with him after Poppy repeatedly urged him to do so, handing Maddens the children's' Passports and 'parental consent forms'. However, after the trip it is revealed to Mrs Bevan that Poppy simply had drawn smiley faces over the parental consent forms, of which again Maddens was unaware. After this discovery, Mrs Bevan tells Maddens to "start looking for another job", fires Mr Poppy whom then has to live in a caravan with his donkey, and cancels the nativity play performance. As a result of the incident, Paul shouts at Mr Poppy about how he has ruined everything, but when he sees the class disappointed, he decides that the show must go on and visits Poppy's caravan to ask for help, stating "I'm gonna do they play".

Later at the play performance, Gordon gets up on stage to tell everybody that nobody from Hollywood would be coming to the show and Maddens' entire story was a lie. Luckily, a helicopter flies over just in time and Mr Poppy excitedly declares that it's the Hollywood visitors arriving. The play continues, and Jennifer and her producer indeed appear at the back to watch, much to Mr Maddens' surprise. Paul heads over to join them and he and Jennifer lovingly share a kiss. The play ends with everyone, including Gordon Shakespeare, Mrs Bevan, and Mr Poppy, reunited onstage to celebrate the children's success. The ending of the film explains how Paul and Jennifer re-kindled their love, and that Maddens went on to move to America to be with Jennifer.

Danger in the Manger (2012)

Donald Peterson is the second new teacher in the series, who takes over Mr Maddens' old class and job at St. Bernadette's, after Maddens moved to America with his girlfriend. Donald had recently moved house with his heavily pregnant wife Sarah (Joanna Page) in the Christmas period in order to start his new job. It is revealed that during Maddens' absence, child-like teaching assistant Mr Desmond Poppy, has been letting the children run wild, joining in with his childish pranks, which have caused all of the supply teachers that Mrs Bevan has found to leave.

The class Poppy has been in charge of want to enter a competition called "A Song for Christmas" after seeing it in the newspaper; the competition involves schools across the nation to produce their own Christmas song. The prize for the winners is £10,000 and the chance to have the entered song reach a Christmas number 1. However, Headteacher Mrs Bevan denies the class and Poppy entry under any and all circumstances without a qualified teacher supervising; however Poppy's behaviour makes Bevan doubt whether one will ever stay in the job long enough.

Mr Peterson is regularly compared to his estranged, identical twin brother Roderick, by his father, whom favours him greatly over Donald, stating that Donald has achieved nothing in life and that they are proud of Rodrick since he is a world-famous composer and conductor. When Mr Poppy decides St Bernadette's should enter the National 'Song for Christmas' competition, he persuades Donald to sign the entry forms, later kidnapping him for a road trip in Wales, where the competition is being held.

However, Roderick, Donald's brother, is competing in the song for Christmas competition, mentoring the choir from upper class St Cuthbert's College, as well as 'Mr Shakespeare' from Oakmoor School, who has also entered. Donald and Mr Poppy take their class through the extremely rugged terrain of rural Wales after taking a wrong turn and getting lost, where they have to tackle issues such as the fact one of the children has smuggled a baby into the class and onto the trip to Wales with them. They end up at a mountain, which they have to climb over to reach the castle in time for the show.

Upon arrival, Peterson is reunited with his wife Sarah, and Mr Poppy with Mrs Bevan. Despite this happy reunion, Peterson’s brother Roderick, intent on winning the competition, steals the baby from Poppy’s class after posing as Donald, and has the choir perform to a piece of Shakespeare and Oakmoor’s song entry after being told that it was what the audience would love. To avoid being exposed, Roderick and the choir then lock his Peterson, Mr Poppy and the St Bernadette's students in a giant snow globe backstage and ensure they are disqualified from the competition. Luckily, the once vengeful 'Mr Shakespeare' and his class are able to save the day, pushing the snow globe on to the stage. Bevan steals back the baby from Roderick and whilst performing under Oakmoor's name, St. Bernadette's sing two songs that the audience are delighted and entertained by. When Donald's father and brother come to find him, Donald has had an epiphany, gaining the courage to be able to stand up to his family - telling them to "shut up", and that he has his true family around him. Celebrity Angel Matthews declares he has to leave immediately or he "will be arrested". Donald leaves the building of his own accord holding Sarah and Poppy's hand and with an almost seemingly drunken bravado shouts "Good night; good luck; Merry Christmas; thank you very much!". Mr Poppy kisses Roderick prior to leaving, quipping "Cheer up, it's Christmas!" which causes Roderick to loudly exclaim, saying " and Roderick, feeling severely disgusted, mutters "I'm gonna need a jab!", as Poppy is seen by multiple characters as messy and un-hygienic.

In a sudden turn of events, Sarah suddenly cries out in pain and it becomes clear she is going into labour. Mirroring the original biblical Nativity story, Sarah rides the donkey to a nearby barn, where Donald takes on the role of a midwife helping her to give birth to twin boys. Poppy, the class, Roderick and Peterson's dad who finally admits he is proud of Donald, arrive at the barn to congratulate the couple. Back at the castle, St. Bernadette's students win the 'Song for Christmas' despite them having to have acted under the name of Oakmoor.

The film draws to a close with Mr Poppy and the children singing the final Christmas song of Nativity 2 for Donald, Sarah and the new-born twins. Donald and Rodrick share an emotional scene in which Roderick places his half of a matching heart locket onto one of the twins, beside where Donald had placed his half, showing that the brothers are going to make up and move past their differences. Mr Poppy claims the final line "Merry Christmas", which is comical as he does so whilst impersonating the donkey, as if it could talk.

Dude, Where’s my Donkey? (2014)

The third new teacher of the series Nativity!, Mr Shepherd, joins the class at St. Bernadette's with daughter, Lauren, initially intending to be their Ofsted inspector. When he sees Mr Poppy's donkey whom he was living with, he decides it does not belong in a school and is a major health risk so rings up an animal Shelter to take away the donkey. When doing this, the donkey kicks Mr Shepherd in the head, leaving him with complete memory loss of everyone and everything in his life beforehand. He is due to get married on Christmas Eve, to fiancé Sophie, but now he has no recollection of her. He is also unaware he is the Ofsted inspector and as the School are also expecting a 'super-teacher', he assumes that this is the role which he was at the school for.

The students at St. Bernadette's and Mr Poppy enter a prize draw for a flash mob competition in a Shopping mall, and the winner goes to New York to dance on the Empire State building. The students participate but, as Sophie's ex, Bradley Finch, is the judge of the competition and does not like class teacher Mr Shepherd, they do not win and recurring rivals at Oakmoor do. Even though they did not win, they take the boarding passes from Oakmoor and sneak onto the Plane to New York anyway. Lauren, Shepherd's daughter, feels lost and loses hope in her wish of them getting married so she can have a new 'mother figure', as her biological mother passed away. With Shepherd suffering severe memory loss and being unable to remember much of his life, he is an unfit parent and Poppy temporarily adopts a role as a father figure in Lauren's life, which is marked as a strong turning point in Poppy's character as this can be seen as an extremely caring and yet sensible which is unusual for Poppy thing to do. The children and Mr Poppy fight to get his memory back before he is due to marry his fiancé, by doing activities they believe will 'jog his memory'. He only just gets his memory back by the end of the movie, after Sophie declines Bradley Finch (her ex) at the aisle, knowing it wasn't the right thing to do as she does love Mr Shepherd.

Reception

Critical response

There have been many criticisms of the film, especially of Mr Poppy, his behaviour and language. Katelyn Mensah wrote an article titled "Every Time Mr Poppy should have been straight up fired from the school in Nativity". Now, this title resonates many questions as to why, if Poppy should 'have been fired' than why he is the main character of the trilogy of films, in which he remains as a teaching assistant. Katelyn Mensah - the producer of the article - stated; " He is an absolute liability; this man could lose a child in an empty room". She stated this quote mainly due to other things such as the death slide Mr Poppy encouraged Mr Madden's to purchase for their Nativity show for the children to use, and forging the parents signatures to go to a song for Christmas with the children. However, this resonates the question as too, 'Is Mr Poppy a loving, playful character, or is he harmful to the children?'. However, it could easily be argued that the actual film series rated 'PG', would not have included a teaching assistant who was overly dangerous, as the target audience of children would easily become frightened. Another critic believed that Mr Poppy is a 'man-child' in his film review,, which is also supported by a critic writing [1] about various themes that appear throughout the film series, who states that "he is shown as a 'man-child' and no more mature than the students he claims to teach", but adds how this is prior to his character development in the third film.

Again in the first film, a film review page, stated' "Mr Poppy is a manipulative arse, pass it on" in the title of the article. "He is obnoxious, manipulative and mean but the film tries to play him off again as this loveable man child". There seems to be more critics who deem Desmond as annoying but loveable in the beginning movies, to then progressively become more of a mean character to the other teachers in the movies as the sequel go on. This author has a very strong negative view on Desmond, also having the view that Mr Poppy is seen as a criminal in the second movie Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger, "He is also a criminal, tying Mr. Peterson up, stealing his money and kidnapping a bus full of kids". A lot of the sources seem to believe that Desmond doesn't have the capacity to be a good teacher, possibly stereotyping social class as he does not actually have any qualifications.

One critic states their thoughts on Desmond as being the 'laughing stock' of the series which they term as a "butt-monkey", also described as an 'easy target' - quoted here: "The character who is always the butt of the demeaning joke or the "put them through hell" plot line. For whatever reason, the Butt-Monkey seems to walk through life with a permanent "Kick Me" sign attached to their backs, invisible to them, but all too visible to the rest of the world. Nothing ever goes right for this character, and if something bad is going to happen to someone, chances are it's going to happen to them. Long story short, it sucks to be a Butt-Monkey. Simply having a character go through hell once or twice (no matter how severely) is not enough to be the Butt-Monkey. With primary and secondary characters, it must be a regular occurrence. With tertiary characters, it must be their sole purpose to exist. It's not necessarily karma. They don't have to deserve what they go through, but they're an easy target. Sometimes it's all the writers can think of to do with the character.". This critic later adds how Poppy exhibits other traits such as how he is seen as The Ditz: and how he is often on the receiving end of "The Reason You Suck" Speech.

Language use

In the first Nativity film, we see Desmond showing his personality through his language - especially him being overly excited with the children and his child-like personality. In one scene when Mr Poppy confronts the children about Hollywood coming to St. Bernadette's, he gets way too excited and lies to the children about his knowledge. He Yells in excitement, "In 3D with 5D sound and we're all going to be famous!". He has no proof whether this is true or not but says it anyway to please the kids and himself - He sees himself as one of the children. We also learn about Desmond's daring personality very quickly in the first movie, Nativity!. When him and Mr Madden's are shopping for Christmas trees, he states "No, the big one", after Mr Madden's insists that they need the smaller one as it won't fit. We see through his short sentence, that his language here tells the audience that he has the mindset 'All or nothing" when it comes to making himself and others he cares about happy. To further this point, he is determined to not let the kids down and disappoint them at any point. When he realised it was a lie he tried his best to make it work for the kids; " All we've got to do is call your girlfriend and get the Hollywood people across"- directed to Mr Madden's.

Mr Poppy is a child-like character, and we can see this predominantly from the first Nativity!, from where he gossips with the kids and uses his language to manipulate them. He stated excitedly to the children; " I've got something to tell you, but I'm not supposed to tell you, but someone's twisted my arm so I'm gonna have to tell you". Here, we see him using his language to excite the children and also to confide in them about a secret he has, and hasn't told anyone else about. This is not a normal, teaching assistant role to do, so proves him to be unqualified and unable to be appropriate. Mr Poppy uses very long, complex sentences as well in his language which shows his child-like nature, for example, when rehearsing he says; "As the cross opens up we see like the city of Nazareth and the children turn around..." and then gets interrupted by Mr Madden's. His fast- paced language shows the audience that he has childish tropes such as being over excited and gets ahead of himself very easily and quickly. Another piece of evidence of him showing a comical and childish behaviour is when he says to Mr Madden's "bagsy drive the van" to which he then states, "nothing overrules the rules of bagsy". This conveys him using child games and saying even though he is a fully grown adult.

To finalise, in Nativity!, even though he has many stupid and childish ideas, he does care about the children and his friends, most importantly Mr Madden's. In one scene, he says to Mr Madden's in a calm and gentle tone; "I could help you mend your heart Mr Madden's".

In Nativity 2, Mr Poppy shouts, “Teachers are losers” which he chants with the students in class and later leads the class out singing a version of ‘jingle bells’ with rude lyrics such as ‘uncle billy lost his willy’. This shows his use of bad language around the children by using these childish insults. His language portrays he is no more mature than the students. Also, he mocks Mr Peterson’s accent and pretends he cannot understand him. Furthermore, when Mr Poppy is in the school bus, he asks the Oak Moor student who he finds lost in the road, to tell the truth and proceeds with the question, “do you think I am ugly?”, to which the student replies, “yes”. He complains that this was "not very nice", but the student insists that that he was telling the truth. Mr Poppy uses this question to confide in the children for help, showing his underlying insecurities through his language.

Mr Poppy has an extremely unrealistic ideology on life, and we see this especially in this movie Nativity 2}}. He has a lot of faith which is unrealistic but magical to the children. When the class is lost in the field Desmond states to Mr Peterson; "Donkeys can fly", then repeats to say, "Donkeys can fly, can't they?", to the children. He knows this isn't true but tries to give hope to the children, but giving an unrealistic reality to the kids. Another example of him showing this personality trope through his language, is when Mr Peterson states that they can't climb up the mountain, but Mr Poppy states; "yes we can", even though it is extremely dangerous and would be putting the children at extreme risk, however he does not think about this, and just wants to get to The Song for Christmas no matter what it takes.

Mr Poppy believes he is one of the students' '[[friends', which can be seen as highly inappropriate in the workplace, but he is seen to not have any real adult friends, so it suggests that he is just lonely as a character. Near the end of the movie, Nativity 2, he says to one of the children, "But you'll just leave like everybody else, because you'll leave school and move on like everybody else". We learn that he is just looking for that companionship of friendship, and as of his immaturity and child-like nature, he creates a friendship with the children easier than with adults his own age. This quote can also reflect on the previous in the series, Nativity!, as of his inner sadness about Mr Madden's "ditching them' to go to America with Jennifer. We can also see Desmond acting similar to the first movie Nativity!, through his speech about childhood games, he stated; "It was a dare that got out of hand" to Mr Peterson, showing his immature nature once again. Again, to portray his immature tendencies, when Mrs Bevan rejects the idea of going to 'A Song for Christmas', Desmond mimics her and says "You're not going for A Song for Christmas" and after says "Please tell me this is a joke aunty Pat". While he mocks her speech, the audience also learn that he has no concept of time, and especially money that goes into things in adult life. He is not emotionally mature enough to understand these concepts.

Throughout Nativity 3, we see Mr Poppy starting to behave more like a responsible adult that he is supposed to be, when we see him becoming a parental substitute, throughout most of the movie, to student Lauren, Mr Shepherd's daughter, after he loses his memory. "What matters is that there is a little girl downstairs who needs your help", he states this to Mr Shepherd, trying to help their family through the situation. We also see this from when Mr Poppy states, 'It's alright Lauren, I'll look after you", and "we're going to have to be her family now guys", when he believes Mr Shepherd is not going to get his memory back. We see his maturity coming out in this movie, through Lauren again< with the statement, "You will I promise, I've made you a Poppy promise and I can't go back on it", after Lauren says she needs to go to New York to get a 'new mum'- Sophie.

A point in the movie Nativity 3: Dude, Where's My Donkey? in which we see Mr Poppy's old ways of being immature and his deceiving nature was when he told Mr Shepherd that he was the headmaster of St. Bernadette's after he had lost his memory. This could be because he wanted to see actually capable of his job and to have a higher authority than his position at the moment, and over Shepherd.

In this final movie Nativity 3: Dude, Where's My Donkey? that Desmond Poppy stars in, we see his childish manner still continues to overrule his other personality traits. At one point in the movie, he acts like one of the children, by saying; "oh come on this isn't fair". Again, this suggests that he is still yet to grow out of his immature and self-entered phase of his life of the character. To show this personality trait again, we see it from the quote; "very good aunty Pat, you can come out now". He believes aunty Pat is playing a childhood game with him so goes along with it, to then thinking she is playing a prank on him, even though deep down he is just upset that things haven't gone his way. We can see that he still believes that the students are like family to him, let alone his only friends. From the quote stated; "He's part of this St. Bernadette's gang". His use of the slang lexis "gang" conveys his child- like behaviour again, as well as his incapability to make friends his own age outside of the workplace.

Relations between characters

Key

Dotted Line = Family relation. Solid Line = Known to each other within the film series.

St.Bernadette's

Jerry Poppy

Desmond Poppy

Mrs Bevan

Mr Shakespeare

Emmanuel Cavendish

Mr Maddens

Mr Peterson

Mr Shepherd

Oakmoor

Jennifer

Cracker

Lauren

Sophie

Rodrick

Sarah

See also

• Nativity!
• Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger
• Nativity 3: Dude, Where's My Donkey?
• Nativity Rocks!
• Nativity! The Musical
• Marc Wootton

External links

• TV Tropes

This article "Desmond Poppy" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Desmond Poppy. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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