So,
Manchester Passion eh? Who thunked of that? The story of Jesus told with some Madchester classics. And 10cc. And M People. And Robbie Williams who, in many ways, is from Stoke. But that's not the point.
No, MP (as it shall hence be known) actually worked. It had some John Simm lookalikey as Jesus, the doctor chap out of Eastenders as Peter and Tim Booth of James as Judas. Plus some gospelly woman who murdered Cast No Shadow and Keith Allen presenting the whole 'extravaganza'. I'm more atheist than most, but it was a good way to tell an old sotry. Certainly better than the rubbish that Mel Braveheart dished out to us a few Easters ago.
Perhaps it could be the dawn of a whoel new spin-offs. A musical might break the West-End and why stop at Jesus? We could have the the Great Gatsby told with bling-heavy hip-hop or Dracula sountracked by Norwegian death-metal.
Who knows? But at least it shows there are some people in TV-land coming up with original ideas. Which is more than can be said for the makers of Beauty and the Geek.
Finally, and with reference to John Harris, I must ask why the producers of MP didn't give Pontius Pilate the Happy Mondays' Kinky Afro to sing. All together, 'yippy ya ya ya ya yay hey, I had to crucify some brother today'.
And so on.
