"Ironically, we're waiting for Jesus to come down!"

... said Keith Allen after the Manchester Passion went off air. (They wanted to have a bit of a singalong with the whole cast and crowd, but Jesus was still at the top of the Town Hall tower, from which he'd sung his last song.)

It was fun! Not seen the whole of the broadcast yet, because the traffic getting out of town was so bad that I didn't get home till 11.30 (normally I'd have been on the train, but helpfully there were engineering works. Typical.) But from the bit I saw, they weren't focussing on where we were standing. Not to worry - we were right at the front so had a fabulous view. (I took a couple of pictures before and after the show - will put them online shortly.)

The singing (of the "communal choir") was not quite as successful as they'd hoped, I suspect. Although there were lots of people singing. The problem was one of placement - the volunteer singers weren't all together, we were scattered through the crowd in groups. I think it would have been a lot better if all the singers had been where we were - we were put in the ridiculously named "golden circle" (i.e. right in front of the stage) as we were assumed to be the best (quite rightly!) But also in the golden circle were a load of people with guest passes - relatives of the cast, etc., I think - and most of them didn't sing at all but spent the whole time talking very loudly so they could hear each other over the speakers. Oh well. We sang very loudly anyway :-)

There was a warmup comedian guy before the show, called (I think) John Warburton. He explained to the crowd what would happen and what they were asked to do: "Don't cheer Jesus. if they set him free it'll all go wrong! ... It seems a bit harsh, but it's already happened, to be honest." He also sang Oasis's Live Forever so we could warm up our voices - of course, we hadn't practised that one and only knew one line of the lyrics, but still! Oh, and he got the crowd to do a "Manchester wave", which consisted of that hand symbol with the thumb, forefinger and little finger raised, and shouts of "ee!" as these hands were raised in one direction, and "ah!" when the wave came back the other way. It was more amusing than it sounds, honest!

There was also: "Anyone here from London?" [a few people cheer; rest of crowd boo] "Don't boo them, they're only here to steal our water!"

I still have a list of things I wanted to mention, but I'm off to Harrogate in a minute, so I'll finish tomorrow.

EDIT: Pics from yesterday are online here. (Still waiting for cats to come in before I can go out!) At first I was disappointed that the one of Jesus on the edge of the stage talking on his phone was spoiled by the lights. But in hindsight I think it's kind of appropriate!