Sunday, March 09, 2008

BBC One: The Passion

I'm very much looking forward to this year's coverage of the Easter story by the BBC.



I managed to catch the trailer on the Beeb the other night...and I've been searching everywhere for a version I can embed here. I haven't succeeded yet, but rest assured should a copy surface I'll have it up and running in no time. In the meantime however, you can watch the trailer on the homepage for the drama. There's a lot of information on it, it's worth taking a look at.

The most prominent member of the cast (at, least in terms of audience awareness/pop culture)is probably James Nesbitt (Cold Feet, Jekyll, Murphy's Law, and if you are really desperate... the very funny yellow pages adverts). Nesbitt is portraying Pontius Pilate; he describes his interpretation of the character as "a weary warrior dealing with something he doesn't want to".

Jesus - the man himself, is being portrayed by highly acclaimed relative newcomer, Joseph Mawle. He describes the responsibility of playing the role of Christianity's central figure as an awesome one that is full of depth, and he thinks of Jesus' journey as a character as a lonely one. Mawle suffered from a viral infection that left him partially deaf in both ears, requiring him to use hearing aids a lot of the time. One random and completely irrelevant fact is that he was born exactly 8 months before me.

From what the trailer is suggesting, it'll very much be done in the same style as the BBC's recent Roman History productions (Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, Attila, Hannibal). This will be a good thing as it re-establishes the historicity of the Gospel story. I'm really looking forward to seeing how they realise ancient Judaea at the time of Christ.

If you want to catch The Passion, the schedule is as follows:

Episode 1: Sunday 16 March, at 20:00 on BBC ONE
Episode 2: Monday 17 March, at 20:30 on BBC ONE
Episode 3: Friday 21 March, at 21:00 on BBC ONE
Episode 4: Sunday 23 March, time TBA, on BBC ONE


Here is a link to a page giving a brief synopsis of each episode.

I for one am getting quite excited... I hope to review each episode and share my thoughts with you.

Are any of you planning to watch this? Do you have any pre-emptive thoughts you'd care to share?

Update as of 17th March:

For those of you who missed the first episode, I've managed to source a copy of the trailer for youto see what you are missing:

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