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Manchester Passion: The Last Supper? It was a burger

The Observer, UK
Apr. 9, 2006
Peter Stanford
observer.guardian.co.uk

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Monday April 10, 2006

The BBC is taking a big risk with a pop Passion performed on the streets of Manchester, says Peter Stanford

Modern renditions of the last hours of Jesus can be cheesy (Jesus Christ Superstar), subversive (Life of Brian) or just plain gory (Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ). What they all manage to do is offend. So the BBC’s Manchester Passion, to be broadcast live from the city’s streets on Good Friday, is a monumental act of faith by the corporation in these religiously sensitive times.

Manchester has been chosen as the latterday Jerusalem because it has no religious sectarian past and a strong multifaith identity. But what makes the project braver is that it risks causing offence to pop fans. For its soundtrack consists of new arrangements of Manchester classics spanning 30 years, from Joy Division to the Smiths via Elkie Brooks. They will be performed live by a cast of young actors and musicians as the cameras follow them walking among crowds of onlookers in central Manchester.

At London’s Abbey Road Studios, as the cast rehearse a take on New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’, accompanied only by a guitar, a cello and an accordion, executive producer Sue Judd admits that it is ‘all a bit of a leap in the dark’.

What is a Passion Play?

“A passion play is a religious drama depicting Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. Passion plays originated in the Middle Ages, when they were performed as part of the celebration of Good Friday. They are still performed in parts of Europe, notably Oberammergau in southern Germany, where they have been staged every decade since 1634.”
– BBC

What is Good Friday?

All the songs in Manchester Passion have been stripped down by Philip Sheppard, professor of cello at the Royal Academy of Music. ‘Blue Monday’ becomes a duet for Jesus and Judas, M People’s ‘Search for the Hero’ a bit of motherly advice from the Virgin Mary to her son and ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ the backdrop to the Last Supper. ‘Angels’ is in there too (Robbie Williams having been in Take That and so just about qualifying as Mancunian despite being from Stoke), but the producers aren’t saying where. ‘With such a well-trodden tale,’ says Judd, ‘you need an element of surprise.’

‘I hope that we are retelling the story respectfully and redoing the music respectfully,’ says co-writer and producer Stephen Powell. ‘Not everyone will be pleased by us having the Last Supper at a burger van. But we have worked from two starting points – the Bible and Bach. In his St John and St Matthew Passions, Bach used both original music and adaptations or his interpretations of popular songs and popular religious music of the time. We’ve tried to follow.’

Another element of continuity is re-enacting the Passion as part-public procession, part-community carnival. As Jesus and the apostles, who will include Bez from the Happy Mondays, work their way through the crowds to a stage in the city’s Albert Square for the trial and crucifixion, members of local faith groups will carry an eight-foot cross to the same location.

Many of the traditional pitfalls of Passion retellings have been sidestepped in the effort to innovate without offending. Even the crucifixion is tastefully done, with the actors offstage and their place taken by a series of famous images of the scene on Calvary beamed onto a giant screen. That comes as a relief, says Darren Morfitt, the 32-year-old who plays Jesus. In rehearsal, his take is more impish and streetwise than magisterial or anguished.

‘We are trying to tell the story on a human level,’ says Powell, who describes himself as a lapsed Catholic. ‘We present the story in such a way as to leave it to viewers to decide if they believe Jesus is divine.’ Which won’t please everyone, though the Anglican Bishop of Manchester has given the script his approval.

Most pre-production nerves in the rehearsal room centre on the practicalities of staging such a huge event live. ‘It’s very risky,’ says musician and actor Tim Booth, who plays Judas. ‘It will either be a triumph or it will fall flat on its face. I don’t think there is anywhere in-between.’

• Manchester Passion will be broadcast live on BBC3 at 9pm on Good Friday and repeated later that evening on BBC2