“Behind the Stone” featuring J Marie Cooper (Mary Magdalene) from “Love Beyond – The Concept CD”
“Jesus Christ Superstar” has been running off and on for 43 years; it has some fantastic songs such as the theme tune and the haunting“ I Don’t Know How To Love Him.” However it does not include the Resurrection of Jesus and not many would regard it as telling the story from a Christian perspective. The musical “Godspell,” although again missing a definitive resurrection, is much more Christian based – being mostly centred on the parables of Jesus as told in the Gospel of Matthew. “Godspell” also has had many different productions since 1971. One fantastic version I recently saw was produced by my good friend Paul Clements’ theatrical company Vision Works visionworksmtc.co.uk. There have also been numerous Passion plays such as the one staged in Southampton in 2011 by another friend, Neil Maddock for E- Quip Arts Community Project www.e-quiparts.org.uk
However Christian musicals are very much few and far between. We are of course so excited that our very own “Risen! – The Musical”! is well on its way to having a completed double CD, with a written score in the pipeline and hopefully a full stage production ready for 2015. As I have previously said this is somewhat dependant on funds, hence my reference in recent blogs to our potential fund raiser “Cheerful Giver” which we hope will be launched on Oct 26th.
Risen! focuses on one relatively small part of the Bible – namely the resurrection appearances of Jesus -a small part of the Bible but one which most Christians would regard as the most important – after all St Paul says that if Christ is not raised then our preaching is useless and so is our faith.
The new musical “Love Beyond” www.lovebeyondmusical.com however features the theme of love using illustrations from the whole of the Bible -Genesis through to Revelation. I had the privilege to see the show last week on the final night of a two day production at the Wembley Arena. The writer and Producer, Richard Haley who I recently met (sorry I seem to be name dropping big time today!) told me that he had a dream to create a concept musical some 15 years ago inspired by his progressive music heroes Rick Wakeman and Jeff Wayne. He also had a vision whilst at the Wembley Arena with his son that this would be an ideal venue for dramatising his Christian faith in music. Part of the story behind “Love Beyond” involves Richard meeting with Tabitha Webb when she was currently singing the female lead in “Phantom of the Opera”. Tabitha collaborated with Richard in writing and arranging the music and was instrumental in bringing in many West End performers.
The show richly deserved the accolades it has received – here is one typical of many posted on Facebook;
This was a fantastic evening, splendid, thought-provoking, and richly layered. Awesome choreography, superb use of minimal props and staging, world class performances, and a thoroughly up-lifting and faithful presentation of the greatest love story ever told.
So “Love Beyond” has proved that a Christian musical can be produced in a top, top venue- can be totally professionally presented and be extremely well received – where “Love Beyond – The Musical” has gone – I hope and pray that “Risen! -The Musical” will follow.
In the next few weeks Joffy is recording a string quartet for the Risen! CD and backing tracks and Stuart Fowler is returning to add some additional trumpet so until then I am going to take a rest from blog writing and wait until there is more info to share such as the “Cheerful Giver” fund raising launch. In the meantime we will post on this blog a Mustard Seed Song each week.