Liverpool Nativity

The first thing I thought of was the Manchester Passion from last year, and immediately I started to compare things in my memory. With Liverpool being the European Capital of Culture next year (2008) I suppose they had to do something. This was again screened on BBC3 and put the Nativity into a modern setting. A sleazy, power drunk city official as Herod (Herodius - a woman), an asylum seeker as Joseph, homeless people as shepherds and so on.

I applaud anything that tells the story of Christ in any way, who can know what a modern version will trigger in modern people minds, or what the Holy Spirit can use to spark thoughts. So this is no exception, thanks to the BBC and the people of Liverpool for the presentation. In Christmas television terms this is a really good start to Christmas.

There were for me some problems with the adaption. The timescale from the visit of the angel Gabriel, through to the pregnancy beginning to show, and then on to the birth appear to cover just a few days. There was no sense of time passing, no journey for the couple to make. This took the edge off what the couple must have felt and experienced, and left you wondering about why the birth story is so important. Then there was the usual problem of the Magi at the manger (a supermarket trolley - that was a nice touch. I'll go into Tesco tomorrow and ask for a manger!) which is not really supported by scripture.

There was certainly no shirking the acknowledgment that Jesus was the saviour of the world, and a revolutionary, but the inclusion of Imagine, with the line 'imagine there no heaven ...' when we had just been presented with Gabriel as the commentator was a little strange. Where do people think angels come from I wonder?

There is also the small criticism of many of the players, who were off-key, not sufficiently amplified, and unsure of their lines in some cases.

The verdict has to be positive though, it was good to see, and better to hear it had excellent ratings. "BBC3's ambitious attempt to re-create a modern day nativity on the streets of Liverpool was rewarded with more than 700,000 viewers last night." Follow the link to read more.

What next? London to host a pre-construction of the apocalypse - before or after the 2012 olympics?

Manchester Passion

On BBC 3 live, and repeated on BBC 2 later last night (15 Apr. Good Friday 2006), it is a re-telling of the story of the Passion of Christ in a modern way. Using the music of the city, and various locations around Manchester we follow Christ from the Last Supper to the his final condemnation. Then we jumped almost immediately to the resurrection. No attempt was made to re-enact the crucifixion itself, but there was a graphic description of crucifixion as carried out by the Romans at that time. We have ourselves represented Christ's life in public, and know how powerful the story can be, although we didn't have the BBC to make a high quality programme about it. Some of the pieces I particularly enjoyed:

• Riot police with SPQR on their uniforms, particularly in their confrontation with Peter.
• Jesus being 'bagged' (hooded) and put in the cage in the back of a police van.
• The 'front man' who also played Pilate telling us that we'd really all like to be Pilate -he has a point, I suppose.
• The crowd shouting CRUCIFY!, was good for getting everyone involved, and certainly could have been fairly convincing as a wild mob.

Some of the interviews of the public who had travelled to Manchester to see (be involved in?) the spectacle were also interesting.

• “I don't believe in organised religion – so I'm here representing all those who don't believe in organised religion” - Think about it!
• A Moslem explaining how important Jesus is in Islam. He's just another prophet from God, is what it amounted to.
• A Christian punk rocker saying that Jesus would have come to the punks and had his ministry amongst the drop outs and low-lives. Yes, I agree, He would, but there is more – Jesus ministered to ALL those who needed / recognised Him. Think of Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea, who took care of His body.

There are also some criticisms, not of what was being shown – that was good, and telling the story in a local way (both geographically and in time) is a helpful ting to do to get people aware and involved. My criticisms are of the way things were put together and presented.

• The singer who played Mary was difficult to hear, and way to serene to really be involved in the story.
• There were many occasions when one or two lines from songs were repeated over and over. I don't much like this in a worship environment, where the songs are written with repetition in mind, here it was inappropriate, and seemed to be there just to fill the time.

Offence

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1749813,00.html Lets hope that none of the 'pop' fans who turned out for the event were offended, not by the music anyway – that wasn't radical, innovative, or so far as I could tell offensive.

There is much that is described as 'must see' or 'unmissable', this wasn't – it should have been!