Monday, December 17, 2007

Witness

It's all happening at the BBC at the moment. The production with the working title of The Passion is currently being edited ahead of its broadcast next March (and the edits of episodes 1-4 that I have seen are wonderful); yesterday we had the Liverpool Nativity and all this week we have Witness, which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. Episode 1 was broadcast today and you can listen again here:

The Afternoon Play
Witness: Five Plays from the Gospel of Luke

By Nick Warburton

The story of Jesus imagined through the eyes of those who witnessed it.

Monday

The Lake

Peter and his brother Andrew tell the story of how Jesus was baptised and began to teach in Galilee, and how they were inspired to leave their lives as fishermen and follow Him.

Jesus ...... Tom Goodman-Hill
Peter ...... Peter Firth
Andrew ...... Paul Copley
Baptist ...... Stephen Greif
Elder ...... Sam Dale
Possessed man ...... John Lloyd Fillingham
John ...... Simon Treves
Woman ...... Laura Molyneux
Tempter ...... Peter Marinker
I am listening at the moment. It has a very Man Born to be King feel to it, and is great listening, though the accents are more obviously regional than they were for the Dorothy Sayers classic. I hope to continue to comment as the week goes on. I will post periodic reminders about listening to it. It's actual broadcast time is 2.15pm daily.

Note too that there is a short documentary series following the play each day, 3-3.15pm. It is presented by Ernie Rea. Details and the listen again facility are found here:

Witness: Behind Luke's Story

The blurb for today's episode is as follows:
Ernie Rea presents a series exploring Luke's gospel. 1/5: He looks at the social and political context of Jesus's radical teaching on the Kingdom of God.

5 comments:

Steven Carr said...

I wonder why the resurrection inspired these people to leave Jesus and go back to fishing.

Ray Timmermans said...

Perhaps they had to eat...just a thought.

Steven Carr said...

They had managed to get food while they had been sent out by Jesus to preach.

But now, when they actually had some clue as to what they were supposed to be preaching, they jacked it all in.

Anonymous said...

I think the regional accents work extremely well as links to the Galilaean accents, which we know was mentioned as distinctive in the gospels; too often Jesus is portrayed as some kind of educated upper class holy vicar. This has a much more down to earth and gritty feel to it; like a painting that has been restored to life.

I also liked the way he re-ordered the material so that the birth stories come after the crufixion, with Mary grieving, and holding onto the past (just as one would, I feel); it makes good sense of them here.

Perhaps a bit cheeky to use an American accent for Pilate, though. The Roman Empire represented by today's American Empire!

Anonymous said...

hi do u know where i can get download this from ?