The Greatest Story Ever Told Songs of Praise


The Greatest Story Ever Told

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I bid you all warmly welcome to the ancient and beautiful

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city of Chester, home of the world-famous Chester Mystery Plays.

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This is the cathedral city of Chester,

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which has been steeped in Christianity for nearly 2,000 years.

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It's also the home of the ancient Mystery Plays, which,

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as you can hear, is being announced by the town crier.

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Every five years, the stories of the Bible are re-enacted

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in a huge community production with scores of volunteers,

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both on and off the stage.

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Thousands have seen it over the past couple of weeks

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and we are going to get a taste today on Songs Of Praise

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as we celebrate the greatest story ever told.

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I'm going behind the scenes during the final rehearsals,

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meeting the man who plays God

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and the playwright bringing the age-old stories to life,

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and, of course, we've timeless hymns telling the story of salvation.

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Chester is one of Britain's oldest cities.

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In fact, there was a Roman settlement here

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only 70 years after the birth of Christ.

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These city walls were built after the Normans' arrival,

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around 1000 AD, and then, in the 15th century,

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an ancient tradition began, which has been going strong ever since.

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The Chester Mystery Plays

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predate the first English translation of the Bible.

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It's the story of mankind and man's redemption,

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from the creation right the way through to the last judgement.

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In the past, the plays have been performed entirely outdoors.

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This year they're moving indoors to Chester Cathedral.

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There is just something very beautiful

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about being in the nave of the cathedral.

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It's almost a real genuine community that you are a part of.

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You become aware of hundreds of years of devotion, really,

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on stage, and to be part of that is extraordinary.

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At their heart, they still remain plays by the people for the people,

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a coming together of the whole community,

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and that is what our first hymn is all about.

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It was actually recorded here at the cathedral

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with congregations and school choirs gathered together

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to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

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In 1951, the Chester Mystery Plays

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were updated for the Festival of Britain.

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Since then, they have been performed every five years,

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continuing an ancient tradition

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where local guilds or community groups

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perform the great stories of the Bible.

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For 2013, they have been adapted by writer Stephanie Dale.

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I'll go hence and trace my path...

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I think the most important decision that we made very early on

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was that we wanted to work

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with the local community as much as we could

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and what was important to us was to find a way

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of updating the guilds, the people who would

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put on the plays now - the teachers, the commuters, the tourists,

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the gay community, the homeless community.

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So, for example, creation,

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the most logical thing to do with creation

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was to give it to the teachers

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and so the teachers' guild is now performing creation,

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which is a lesson to year four.

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At my bidding, may it be light!

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Light is good, I see in sight.

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Did you ever worry about it being a little bit irreverent?

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I think we have tried extremely hard to look at each individual play

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and look at the tone of it.

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THEY SING

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I didn't want to create a piece of museum theatre that people think,

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"What has this got to do with me now?"

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I wanted it to feel very sort of 2013 and we are in Chester.

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Equally, I've been very careful, so, for example,

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plays such as the Passion, I've left very much alone.

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The Paschal lamb must be as the Lord doth command.

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-The Paschal lamb is made ready.

-It was made hours before.

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It's a drama, it's a play,

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but underpinning it is that spiritual tone.

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How does that affect you?

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I think it's been very, very moving

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and particularly when we have been coming into the cathedral

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and I think it is extraordinary to think that we are actually

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in the space where the monks would have translated these plays

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from Latin into English hundreds of years ago.

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You do find yourself thinking, "What would they make

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"of where we are now and how we are, you know, retelling these stories."

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And as a writer, do you think this is the greatest story ever told?

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I think it has to be, doesn't it?

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Because there are just... Each play, the play is about love,

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about jealousy, about hate, about revenge

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and I think, whether you have religious belief or not,

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I think, how can these stories fail but to move you?

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40 days and 40 nights it shall rain...

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For the actors involved in the Chester Mystery Plays,

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it's a chance to tell the stories of age-old biblical characters

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in a historic and holy place.

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The building itself and the sort of

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hundreds of years of spirituality in the place,

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come to be part of the production as well.

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In a funny kind of way,

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the building becomes a character in the play as well.

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I hear the angel and Lucifer.

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Actor Nick Fry is a member of the cathedral congregation

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and has perhaps the most challenging part of all.

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The kind of premise of the play is God's workshop

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and so it's creating the world and then sort of setting it off.

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-What are you doing in there?

-I'm playing God.

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-SHE LAUGHS

-Yes, I know.

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I... I create the world and it's wonderful, the power!

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I mean, that's quite daunting.

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You can't get anything more daunting than playing God, can you?

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No, especially in a cathedral.

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The scary bit is trying to come up with a character

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because it's quite easy to be a bit distant and sort of just be,

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you know, the man in the clouds sort of shouting at people.

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Adam! Man! Also I say to thee...

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What characteristics are you giving him?

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As an actor, what you do is look for humanity,

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so when God sort of expels Adam from Eden,

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you kind of ask, well, how did God feel about that?

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Was he disappointed, happy, sad?

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And that's what you look for,

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those sort of human characteristics you try and latch on to.

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So has this experience

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brought you to an understanding of God's humanity?

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Absolutely, yes.

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As a person of faith, that reveals something to you

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that perhaps you hadn't expected to discover.

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That sense of seeing God as a person, not just as a concept

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or as an abstract being, but as an actual person, is quite interesting

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and it's something, actually, I hadn't expected to have happen.

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It is for your sins I behight to make reckoning of the right.

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'When you think of approaching the divine in terms of humanity,

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'of course you think of Jesus, and perhaps God is not necessarily

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'seen as that human a figure, but when you start thinking about it,'

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man was created in God's image, so there must be humanity there

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and when you go and look for that and you find it,

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that's quite revealing, actually.

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# God so loved the world

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# So loved the world

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# God so loved the world

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# So loved the world

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# That he gave his only begotten son

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# That who so believeth

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# Believeth in him

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# Should not perish

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# But have everlasting life

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# Everlasting

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# Everlasting life

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-# God so loved the world

-God so loved, God so loved

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# The world, the world

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-# God so loved the world

-God so loved, God so loved the world

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# That he gave his only begotten son

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# That who still believeth Believeth in him

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# Should not perish

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# But have everlasting life

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# Everlasting

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# Everlasting life

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-# God so loved the world

-Everlasting life

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# God so loved the world. #

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A key ingredient in the Chester Mystery Plays is music.

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Local composer Matt Baker has arranged the score

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for musicians of all abilities.

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It's wonderful to be able to work with all the people

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who are performing it.

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There have been people turning up out of the woodwork -

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wonderful singers, brilliant violinists, a didgeridoo player,

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a hurdy-gurdy player, and that's been exciting

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because I've been able to compose for so many different instruments.

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And what about writing what is reputedly

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the greatest story ever told? Is there an added pressure on that?

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Well, yes, because you've got to meet expectations.

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There's the expectations of those people who are coming to witness

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another interpretation of that greatest story,

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but there's also those people

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who perhaps are going to see it for the first time

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and there's the entertainment value, there's wanting to be relevant.

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# Full of Grace God is with thee... #

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Gabriel, for example, when he talks to Mary

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and says that she is going to have a baby,

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it's done to a kind of 1940s Frank Sinatra swing style.

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# ..Bo-o-o-ody! #

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And all the adults get thrown into the mouth of hell

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to the sound of a rock guitar, you know, in a kind of almost

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Bohemian Rhapsody type thing, so it's a real mixture.

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ELECTRIC GUITARS WAIL

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Matt, when you're writing,

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particularly for something that has this spiritual theme,

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how does that affect you?

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Well, it may not necessarily affect me when I'm composing.

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It might be a performance,

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it might be ten performances in and suddenly I'll see it all together,

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I'll see it in the context of the whole story

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and that connection is made

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and I might suddenly become very, very emotional

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and that is from a very deep, spiritual level.

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The passion is being re-enacted in the Chester Mystery Plays,

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right from the Last Supper to the crucifixion

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and in that particular part of the story, I haven't used any singing,

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but just drummers,

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and the drummers create this real pervasive rhythm.

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As soon as the crucifixion happens and we see Mary, mother of Jesus,

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then it becomes a very simple melody.

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HE PLAYS PIANO CHORDS

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As Jesus is being put into the grave.

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# Sister, yet hope I

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# Sister, yet hope I

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# Sister, yet hope I

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# That your son will rise again. #

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This cathedral is the birthplace

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of the first medieval Chester Mystery Plays,

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but they haven't been performed here for over 60 years.

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Over the past few weeks, the clergy have seen the nave

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transformed into an auditorium fit for a community production.

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'The Mystery Plays, I think,

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'have been great for engaging the local community.

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'There's people drawn'

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from all around Chester into North Wales into Liverpool

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and from the cathedral's perspective,

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I think it's really good that we are part of that.

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'One of the big things, I think, in faith is how we step aside

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'and let God do something and I think here at the cathedral,

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'everything is very formulaic, very rhythmic, very ordered

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'and I've had to step aside from my order'

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in trying to keep the cathedral running in a very ordered way

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and just allow something new to happen

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and that is both exciting, but it's also challenging.

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-ALL:

-Ego sum Alpha et Omega...

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'Hearing all the different bits of rehearsal going on

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'and some of those stories,

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'you just suddenly get the glimpse of something

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'or you hear a sound of a text'

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relating to a particular biblical story

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and you stop and you hear it fresh, it's spoken in a different way,

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and that breathes a whole sort of breath of life

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into the cathedral in a new way and that's been really good for us.

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Having finished this weekend, the Chester Mystery Plays

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now move on to Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral in October.

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For the hundreds of local volunteers,

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it's been a long-term commitment

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and a chance to play their part in telling the great story.

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There's a massive range of people involved in the production.

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There's teenagers and such, there's people younger than me,

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five to ten-year-olds,

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who play the parts of the animals in Noah's scene,

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and there's people who are, like, 50 and above.

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It just fills all the community of Chester. It's quite fantastic.

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To see my son here, I kneel before.

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Tugged, bloodied and all too torn.

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One of the parts I'm playing is older Mary in the Passion of Christ,

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the crucifixion, and it's brought it home really, to me,

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more about her personal life and, in fact, what she did go through,

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so it's a good learning curve if you like.

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It's really taken us on another journey.

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-God's son in majesty, come down.

-JEERING

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Many of the volunteers like Jeff McLaughlin

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have never performed on stage before.

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I have learned a lot of new skills by being on stage.

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They've helped me to be able to tell the story

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to those people who I meet on an everyday basis in a simple form.

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And...when I contemplate the writing of these plays,

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which is 200 years before Shakespeare was born,

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and they are still being performed every five years in Chester

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and the word of God is being spread around.

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The story is the same story,

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but it is relevant to everyone today as it was 2,000 years ago.

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It is my will.

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And university student Jessica Lane

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also brings her faith to the performances.

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I value the fact that I can spread God's word through drama.

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It's the first time I've ever done something theatrical that is

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also about God and about the Bible.

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I will not go with that animal!

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'Doing the plays has really helped me to see

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'the Bible in a different way, actually doing the shows and seeing

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'how people are reacting to it

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'has changed my perspective on the stories.

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'I've started praying now. Praying through the shows is something'

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that I have started and will continue to do.

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# You knew me at the start

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# You know me at the end

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# Dreams and realities

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# And everything in between

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# Jesus loves me

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# This I know

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# For sure

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# Oh, how he loves me

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# This I know

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# For sure

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# This is the life you made

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# And journeyed with all the way

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# Dreams and realities

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# And everything in between

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# Jesus loves me

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# This I know for sure

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# Oh, how he loves me

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# This I know for sure

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# Oh, how he loves me

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# This I know

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# For sure. #

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'Lord, thank you for the Gospel and the power it has to change lives.

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'Thank you for bringing people together

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'in a spirit of unity, music and song.

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'Thank you for speaking to us all in your still, small voice.'

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And bless us as your story unfolds in our lives day by day.

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Amen.

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APPLAUSE

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Well, the performances may have come to an end,

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but the ancient and timeless story of the Bible

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continues to be told in churches the length and breadth of the country

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and, of course, it's also told in song,

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so we end with a hymn that reminds us of the greatest story ever told.

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Next week over on BBC Two, another chance to join

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Russell Watson in his native city of Salford.

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He'll be meeting people along its 30 miles of waterways

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and introducing hymns from St Peter's Church in Swindon.

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Subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing by Red Bee Media Ltd

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