I realised last night why I didn’t meet Danny Boyle again on Monday: he was out in Israel, filming the Alternativity for the beeb. I watched this show last night with growing astonishment: as wary as I am of anything religious or biblical, I think Boyle and his colleagues managed to use the Christmas story to say something valuable about the current situation in the Middle East. Having watched the preparation program on monday and then the performance last night, I was struck by how a simple children’s nativity play could be adapted into something overtly political. Israeli oppression of Palestinians is as bad as it ever was out there, with all these infernal walls going up, and Boyle used the play to draw our attention to that. At the same time, what he produced was still a nativity, albeit a slightly modernised one, akin to any primary school Christmas play you’ve ever been to.

Boyle, it seems, has done it again. It might not have been quite as spectacular as the 2012 olympic opening ceremony (no James Bond and the Queen moments this time) but it’s good to see Boyle is still out there, trying to make us think.