The Passion ain’t all it’s cracked up to be – and Jesus is an atheist!

CHRISTIANS – what little is left of them in the UK – are fervently praying that a new BBC drama about Jesus, The Passion, scheduled for screening this Easter will send hordes of new recruits scurrying into the arms of the church.

Said the Reverend Joel Edwards, chair of the Churches’ Media Council:

From time to time opportunities arise nationally that provide significant moments for the Christian faith to engage with our culture. This is one such opportunity.

Edwards added that the series would make a “huge national impact” over Easter.

We doubt it!

Ahead of its screening, Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, was invited by the Observer to preview the production. After seeing it, an underwhelmed Sanderson said that the churches “were well advised to start scaling back their efforts”.

The first episode of the series is confused, confusing and consists mostly of a dizzying parade of faces with no names. Who are all these people running around and doing random acts of violence to the accompaniment of portentous music? Even if you are familiar with the Bible story, you might still have difficulty grasping what is going on. The script is so impenetrable, you could be forgiven for thinking it was written by Rowan Williams.

All the unavoidable cliches are there: the Romans are unremittingly brutal, Jesus walks about spouting over-familiar quotations from his biography and all the faces are disconcertingly familiar from other TV shows – Paul Nicholls as Judas, James Nesbitt as Pontius Pilate – and Jesus is played by Joseph Mawle, who has already revealed to the press that, privately, he is an unbeliever.

The cheapness of the production gives it the disconcerting look of The Life of Brian – a film that has ensured that none of these biblical epics can ever be taken seriously again. Throughout the whole thing I was waiting for Terry Jones to stick his head out of the window and screech: “He isn’t the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy”.

I can imagine that a lot of people might tune into episode one out of curiosity, but then abandon it because they couldn’t make head or tail of it.

For a religiously-illiterate nation that thinks Christmas is the birthday of Santa Claus and that Easter is the weekend when the stately homes open again for the season, things need to be spelled out rather more plainly. But even if it is spelled out, I have a strong suspicion that people have grown out of this sort of stuff.

It just doesn’t cut it either as propaganda or as stand-alone drama. They’d have been better off showing one of the overblown Hollywood versions – King of Kings or The Robe or The Greatest Story Ever Told or even Ben Hur – as bank holiday afternoon viewing. At least with those extravaganzas you knew you were going to get a bit of spectacle, you knew who was who and what was what. Jesus was always accompanied by a heavenly choir and, from time to time, a supernatural glow. And God always spoke in a basso profundo voice, booming through an echo chamber. And you could always depend on Peter Ustinov to give a great performance as an insane Roman Emperor.

The BBC’s Passion, I’m afraid, lacks precisely what the title promises. It’s as dreary as Eastenders with an uncharismatic Jesus who just sort of disappears in a sea of similar faces sporting matted hair and out-of-control beards.