Sorry, but at present I still cannot locate the film of the  2015 Risen! The Musical  at the New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth which featured the London Touring Cast together with the  Portsmouth Gospel Choir. So in the meantime the next video chronological is the one featured today – a clip from  the 2018 Risen! The Musical Theatre in Education tour of Hampshire and West Sussex.

Caroline Wetherelt, who played Mary mother of Jesus in Risen! had, at one time, performed with a travelling theatrical company delivering Pantomimes and workshops in Primary Schools. She remembered hearing words coming  from a classroom similar to those from Risen! ( perhaps an RE focused class) and suggested we could perform a Risen ! production with a script especially written for children. And that’s what we did – my son James, who is a Primary School teacher, advised the content, Darren Bovis- Coulter of 2FishProductions designed a set based on Minecraft, Joffy Girling produced backing tracks and 6 actors from the Risen! The Musical  cast used an Airbnb in Chichester as their base for a 3 week tour of Primary Schools in Hampshire and West Sussex. They performed Risen! in the mornings and then ran musical theatre workshops in the afternoons.

We reached 4000 children in 17 schools. Everything was brilliant apart from a lack of funds- the schools were not in a position to make much of a contribution towards costs – that’s why, although a huge success, we have not been able to repeat a similar tour again.

The amazing cast featured:

Jesus – Max Panks

Mary Magdalene – Caroline Wetherelt and Rebecca Davis

Joanna – Katie Forge

John/Cleopas- Andrew Dovaston

Peter/Judas/Thomas/Cleopas friend- Mikey Wooster

Quote of the week