Reviews: Independent - Guardian - Times

For your consideration:

Thomas Sutcliffe, The Independent, Monday, 17 March 2008:

"Coming Soon" read the title card at the end of the first episode of The Passion, as viewers were tantalised with teaser previews of the Easter story, and if someone had their tongue in their cheek about the millenarian overtones of the phrase (or the absurdity of treating this particular thriller as if viewers didn't already know the ending) nobody was letting on. You can do quite a few things with a modern-media passion play, but flippancy isn't one of them, and, so far, Frank Deasy's version of Christ's arrival in Jerusalem is unimpeachably serious about its subject. The Moroccan location and the dusty hugger-mugger of some of the street scenes mean that it is fleetingly haunted by the spirit of The Life of Brian, but only the most zealously dogmatic Christian could complain that it was irreverent.
Naturally, at least one dogmatic Christian has already volunteered his services. Stephen Green, the self-appointed pharisee who speaks for Christian Voice, has expressed disquiet at the fact that Deasy's account of Christ's last days should have been at pains to round out the motivations and character of two other notable players in the drama – Caiaphas, the High Priest, and Pilate, the Roman Governor. Mr Green wouldn't be satisfied, I suspect, unless both men appeared on screen accompanied by sulphurous gusts of smoke and a blast of the Carmina Burana. But for the rest of us, religiously minded or not, the prospect of a series diplomatically poised between revealed truth and historical speculation must be something of a relief. If you believe that Christ is your redeemer I can't so far see anything in The Passion that would have affronted that faith. And if you don't, its account of the politics of a week that was critical in world history proved surprisingly gripping.
The drama began with the Judean equivalent of a second-hand car deal, Jesus and his disciples shelled out the shekels for a donkey colt as they approached Jerusalem. This is important for the fulfilment of prophecy, as is the entry through Jerusalem's East Gate, and though some of his disciples questioned the wisdom of this move, Jesus himself insisted on the details. Is he fulfilling Zechariah's prophecy or exploiting it? Deasy leaves this open, I think, though, there's nothing self-seeking or cynical about Joseph Mawle's Jesus, who startles even those most devoted to him by his indifference to the old demarcations between the pure and the polluted. Caiaphas, meanwhile, is struggling to maintain a balance between Jewish resentments and Roman power, and Pilate is trying to keep the peace in a city that is already simmering with religious fervour because of Passover. The last thing either man needs is a messianic preacher to turn the gas up even higher.
In The Lost Gospels, the previous night, Peter Owen-Jones reminded us that the canonical gospels represent a considerably tidied-up version of Christ's story, one which suppresses accounts that emphasise the importance of Mary Magdalene or even question the nature of the crucifixion itself. The Christianity that survived, Owen-Jones argued, was a religion calculatingly shaped for survival, sanctifying the suffering that early believers would almost certainly have to endure. Deasy's drama never goes quite so far in questioning the standard theology, but it does effectively capture the sense that this is still a religion in the making, and that human reactions and errors and self-interest will play a large part in shaping it. That in itself will be regarded as heretical by some, but for anyone interested in drama, rather than a Lenten sermon, it was a considerable relief.

Sam Wollaston The Guardian, Monday March 17 2008:

A bunch of blokes with long hair and beards head towards a city. ELO on tour? Nope, too many of them, and the lead guy's on an ass. There's a lot of palm fronds about the place ... ah, I think I know what this is: Palm Sunday. And it's going out on Palm Sunday! So The Passion (BBC1, Sunday), a drama that unfolds in four episodes spread over Easter Week, is TV in real time, a bit like 24, but more retro, and the guy saving the world has more hair. You wouldn't catch Jack Bauer on an ass either. On Friday ... well, I think we all know what's going to happen on Friday. No worries, though, because in the final part next Sunday he'll be up again. And tonight's episode will be about whatever was going on in Jerusalem the Monday before Easter: teaching, preaching, a touch of betrayal, that kind of thing.
Apart from a few familiar faces among the disciples - that's thingy from EastEnders, and wasn't he in Shameless? - there are no massive surprises and I don't think anyone's going to be getting too upset about it. JC isn't a woman, gay, or a Muslim (though it was all filmed in Morocco - I wonder what the locals made of that). It's actually pretty straight. Gospel, you might say. It is also fabulous, with some great performances: Ben Daniels is excellent as a complex Caiaphas, James Nesbitt plays Pontius Pilate with obvious enjoyment, Joseph Mawle is a believable Jesus (which is, I suppose, what you want from someone who says he's the son of God; it can't be an easy role). The ass is splendid too (it's pathetic, I know, but I just enjoy typing that word). But there's also a vitality and realness about the whole thing that you rarely find with this story. A passion, you could even say, in another sense of the word.
We're getting down and dirty in the narrow streets of Jerusalem, overflowing with life and the blood of sacrificed lambs. It's loud, looks alive, you can almost smell it all. This feels like a place and a time that actually happened. It's not at all preachy, though. There's no "he's good and he's bad" stuff. The characters, too, are treated as real people, not merely as vehicles for messages. In fact you could watch The Passion and totally forget that this story was central to a major world religion. And that's a good thing, I think.
Interesting crosses, incidentally. More like capital Ts.

Caitlin Moran, The Times, March 15, 2008:

The Easter Passion - not just an uptight version of the Fast Show
Was the Crucifixion an epic good v evil megabattle or just a bit of a mix-up? A new TV Passion will make things clear
Every Easter must have its Serious Jesus drama - but every Serious Jesus drama has an irony inherent in it. And it is this: stylistically, biblical epics are a mess. You start off watching some dusty, improving historical re-creation in the Middle East - all very BBC Four - and then, suddenly, it all goes a bit Narnia: people flying around, talking to herbaceous borders and rising from the dead. The dialogue is a series of catchphrases (eye of a needle, you have forsaken me, before the cock crows, blah blah blah blah) that make the whole thing seem like a very uptight, ecumenical version of The Fast Show. And, of course, we always know the endings.
I have no idea whom such a genre of drama would appeal to. Let's face it - if people hadn't invented biblical epics yet, they wouldn't bother now.
So with all these worries in mind, here's The Passion. The portents for this project (new star in the sky, rain of frogs, feature in the Times Magazine) are good. This is, after all, produced by Nigel Stafford-Clark - the man who serialised Bleak House, and made it seem like a hotshot goth version of EastEnders. And Stafford-Clark's Serious Jesus idea is razzy: to strip the Easter story over a week, in almost newsy bursts, with loads of back story and characterisation. There are no Wicked Romans, Evil Priests and “Satan entering Judas” here - just a bunch of people coping with a very intense week in Middle Eastern politics. It's almost like Newsnight has started making dramas.
So here we have James Nesbitt as Pontius Pilate - a reasoning, thinking Pilate who, theoretically, has the option of flicking through Yellow Pages to find a “Revolutionary Messiah Removals” company. There's Ben Daniels's High Priest, Caiaphus - not the usual “bad man in a big hat”, but someone with a wife, kids and encamped Roman army to manage. And Paul Nicholls's Judas gets a sympathetic hearing, too - but then, Judas always does, in modern dramas. We all relate to Judas. We all know we're all just one mis-addressed e-mail away from a similarly awkward “blooper” with a colleague.
In short, The Passion goes to great, and very effective, lengths to show that the Crucifixion of Jesus wasn't, really, some inescapable, good v evil mega-battle, like Lord of the Rings. It was, instead, the biggest Snafu (an army acronym, for “Situation Normal - All *beep* Up”) in history. Yes - from an historical and, indeed, educational, point of view, The Passion is pretty much flawless.
My problem with The Passion is, I suspect, my problem with all biblical stories. It's all so hard. Firstly, it's really difficult to identify with a bunch of very uptight, very formal people who say things like “One day, the Romans will devour each other, and not us, and we'll be free of their pagan rule.” I'm sorry, but I just can't believe in an oppressed proletariat who don't say things like “Those sodding great gay-boy Romans”.
Similarly, for a Middle Eastern city in the middle of a great feast, the cinematography is oddly flat. This Jerusalem has no sweat, spice or sunsets - just flat adobe walls, dry bread and unhappy faces. To say the very least, it's not a great big chocolate box-y treat for your Sunday night.
And, mostly importantly, this Jesus and his Apostles are pretty hard to get a handle on. Joseph Mawle's Jesus is resolutely not from the Fonz School of Jesuses - all easy charisma and simple iconography. Instead, he's a rather introverted Marxist revolutionary - a difficult mix to love at the best of times - using a couple of premeditated publicity stunts to wind up the priests. The Apostles, meanwhile, don't really come across as a band of impassioned acolytes, implacably bound together after years of travelling and preaching, in the same way that, say, Chachi, Potsy, Joanie and Ralph Malph would. They spend all their time going, “Ooh Jesus, I don't know if that's a good idea,” or “Why don't we go home now, Jesus?”
If you're hoping to be swept away in a religious frenzy of belief, you've come to the wrong place. This Passion is all about facts and motive. It shows you the politics behind the Passion - but not any passion. It's oddly Godless. Which is why, in the end, for a biblical epic, I like it. But Jesus! It's hard to watch.