Five clever updates of Old Testament stories filled Radio 3’s late-night speech slot this week and revealed just how difficult it is to make these stories work in a contemporary setting.
Five clever updates of Old Testament stories filled Radio 3’s late-night speech slot this week and revealed just how difficult it is to make these stories work in a contemporary setting. Without the cadences of the Authorised Version, the rigour of the language, its powerful rhetoric but also its inflated poetic style, Noah and his ark, or Samson and Delilah, can appear quite ridiculous.
How do you make sense of miracles in our enlightened times? A young man who works in a B&Q DIY store follows a ‘vision’ and saves his family from a flood in Lewisham by building a boat out of timber he has stolen off the shop floor? Teenage Samson struggles at school because of his exceptional strength, pulling doors off hinges and breaking chairs, and because his mother, a hairdresser, refuses to cut his hair? But New Mystery Plays (produced by Jessica Dromgoole) just about pulled off this sleight of hand, the quality of the writing (by five different playwrights) packing so much into just 15 minutes, a life story told in fewer than 2,000 words.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in