The Devil comes to London for Holy Week 2019 ...
Award-winning playwright Justin Butcher, author of the world-famous Scaramouche Jones, the hit anti-war satire The Madness of George Dubya, the acclaimed Go to Gaza, Drink the Sea and, most recently, Walking to Jerusalem: blisters, hope and other facts on the ground, now turns his pen to the greatest story of all, the Passion of Christ told from Satan's perspective.
Framed satirically against a contemporary 'War on Terror' backdrop, this 90-minute one-man show tears open key issues of our time: the Annunciation is depicted as the 'radicalisation' of a 15-year old schoolgirl, through whom 'the Enemy enters in'; Satan's battle is waged in defence of the 'gates' of 'our civilisation' against the 'enemies of freedom'; through an occupied territory bristling with checkpoints, walls, razor-wire fences and watchtowers, Jesus heads to Jerusalem on a 'suicide mission'. Finally discerning Jesus' plan - to die, to assault the gates of hell itself - Satan enlists the audience to join him in averting disaster. He must do all he can to keep Jesus alive or risk being destroyed.
The Devil's Passion offers a radically fresh perspective on the timeless narrative, an audacious hell's-eye view of the Passion of Christ, by turns comic, gripping, poetic, pungent and heart-stirring. Exploring themes of good and evil, religious extremism, freedom, rebellion, life, death, and much more, The Devil's Passion is both timeless and strikingly modern, an original and riveting production shining a new light on the Easter story.
Directed by Olivier Award winner Guy Masterson (Morecambe, Twelve Angry Men, Animal Farm), with a haunting and evocative soundscape by Jack C. Arnold (Wild Rose, War and Peace, Holy Flying Circus, The Woman in Black ). The Devil's Passion was adapted recently as a major new drama for BBC R3, starring David Suchet, broadcast in 2017, hailed in The Observer as a 'magnificent performance' in a 'satirical, darkly comic, thoroughly stimulating production [which] raises many theological and ethical questions' and in The Sunday Telegraph as a 'vivid, comic and lyrical twist on familiar events.'
BOOK TICKETS: https://thedevilspassioncryptonthegreen.bpt.me
TELEPHONE BOOKINGS: 0800 411 8881
www.justinbutcher.co.uk/devilspassion
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