Review

Culture

Film & TV

1 February 2024

6 min read

When Jesus walked in Leicester Square

As the The Chosen’s latest series premieres, Natalie Garrett analyses the TV show’s appeal.

Natalie Garrett

Natalie produces and narrates The Seen & Unseen Aloud podcast. She's an Anglican minister and a trained actor.

A group of actors walk together at a film premiere

Jonathan Roumie, centre, with the cast of The Chosen.

So, I’ve met Jesus twice before. Over 20 years ago, I joined the cast of The Life of Christ at Wintershall, the epic outdoor drama experience that takes you through the story of Jesus’ life (and it’s still going strong). As well as being Crowd Person 176, with glorified tea towel on head, I was cast as the bride at the wedding at Cana. Apart from Jesus, the rest of the cast were local, normal people (as in not professional actors) and I rather shyly attended the first rehearsal knowing no-one. I had been sitting on my own for a bit when Jesus walked in and caught my eye. He walked straight over to me and shook my hand, “You must be Natalie,” he said. For just a moment, I forgot that he was an actor and I thought, “You really are Jesus, you know me by name!” But then I remembered that I was the only new addition to the cast, and he was just a really nice guy welcoming me to the company.

Some eight or so years later, I was involved with the Oxford Passion, a Passion play written for and produced by Creation Theatre company in Oxford. I helped write the script and played the role of Mary Magdalene. The actor, Tom Peters, who played Jesus in that production was incredible. As an actor and as a Christian, it was an extraordinary experience, sharing some powerful scenes with Jesus. Each night for several weeks, I had to watch my beloved Christ being crucified all over again. I wept deeply, every night.

Then fast forward to Monday 22 January 2024, and I’m at the cinema UK cinema Premiere of season four of The Chosen in London’s Leicester Square and I see Jesus walk the red carpet. Surreal.

So, there I was, in all my finery, lurking about, hoping to get a selfie with Jesus.

In case you haven’t come across The Chosen, it’s a ground-breaking historical drama series. Created, directed, and co-written by filmmaker Dallas Jenkins, it is the first multi-season series about the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. Primarily set in Judaea and Galilee in the first century, the series centres on Jesus and the different people who met and followed or otherwise interacted with him. The emphasis is on portraying the “authentic Jesus” through the point of view of the people who spent time with him, asking the question, what did it really look like to be a follower of Jesus? It has quickly become a highly successful crowdfunding project, with episodes viewed 700 million times and a big vision to reach a billion viewers by the end of season seven.

Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus in The Chosen, says,

“Our fanbase was entirely Christian at first, but because of its popularity the show has attracted people from all faiths and no faith to the character of Jesus. We’re trying to really portray his message of love and tender mercy.”

To raise awareness for the show, which can be streamed on Netflix and Amazon Prime (or for free on The Chosen app), season four was launched with a cinema release in Leicester Square. So, there I was, in all my finery, lurking about, hoping to get a selfie with Jesus. And I had to pinch myself. When did Jesus become a world-wide celebrity with people whooping and whistling and jostling for his attention? Well, it happened when he rode a donkey into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday, but not so much in the last 2,000 years, especially not in recent years in the West.

What have the creators of The Chosen got so right that millions of people tune in to binge watch the narrative of the gospel story?

First up, Jesus laughs. A lot. He smiles and he hugs people. He is intensely personable and bloke next door-y (he’s not very good at ball games for one thing). But he also, when necessary, exerts huge personal authority. There is a confident, courageous, generous, humility to him that is hugely attractive. When the going gets tough, you think, he’d be good to have around. But also, he’s great company around the dinner table, telling stories and listening, too.

Because of the way the story is told, through the eyes of those who knew Jesus, we get drawn into the personal dramas of the Twelve Disciples as well as a wider group, including several women. It even includes some Romans, who are clearly the “bad guys” but drawn equally plausibly as the other more sympathetic characters. In the lives of these people, we find the domestic reality of the human experience – working hard to put food on the table, relating to family members, suffering illness and even miscarriage. And then we see the difference that it makes to have the Son of God around. And that’s the hook, that’s what means the viewer becomes deeply invested in the show because it turns out the people in the Bible aren’t super spiritual giants, they are people just like you and me. They struggle with the day-to-day realities of life, they’re confused, and they mess up. And then they meet Jesus.

It’s a huge risk creating a show when everyone knows how it ends. As we watch, even the early seasons, we know where the narrative arc is going. And yet, somehow, we still want to find out what happens. Because: we are invested in the stories of the Roman Centurion who looks as if he might come over to the light side; we’re keen to find out how Simon Peter and his wife get over their marital difficulties; we’re cheering for the success of the olive oil business set up by Zebedee (that’s James and John’s Dad) along with the help of some shrewd businesswomen who are also numbered amongst The Chosen.

When I see a dramatized version of any book I’ve read, I usually get quite angry – “that’s not what he/she looks like! That’s not how they talk!” And dramatizing part of the bestselling book of all time, the four Gospels of the Bible, is quite a risky choice for a TV programme. But I recognise the Jesus in The Chosen as the Jesus I know and love. And there is no higher accolade I can give than that.

The extraordinary success of the show is that millions of people have watched it and been drawn in. Millions of people have invested not just their time and viewing commitment, but also their own money. The show is entirely crowdfunded, and the show’s makers are deeply committed to building community around what they’re doing. Fans are invited to participate in the crowd scenes (being the 5,000 who get fed, for example) and there is almost as much behind-the-scenes content produced as the show itself. There’s a buzz around what they’re doing and it’s spreading way beyond the homes of a Christian fanbase.

When Jonathan Roumie arrived for the season four premiere in Leicester Square, it was like a rock star had stepped out of the car, such was the reach and excitement around his portrayal of Jesus in The Chosen. For hundreds of years, Christian artists have used the creative arts at their disposal – stained glass windows, music, fine art – to try to convey the authentic Jesus to the world. In our time, TV programmes are the artform of greatest impact and the digital distribution now available to the makers of The Chosen affords unprecedented access to their material around the world, as they aim to dub it into 600 languages ensuring 95 per cent of people worldwide can watch it spoken in their native language.

Is it too soon to suggest that The Chosen may be the Sistine Chapel of our age? It’s certainly too early to try guess the impact that this cultural phenomenon will have on the world’s faith journey. But if the reaction on the red carpet at Leicester Square last Monday night is anything to go by, Jesus seems to be making a comeback.

Episodes 1&2 of season four of The Chosen are showing in UK cinemas from Thursday 1 February 2024 - with other episodes being released later in the month. This is the first time ever that a full season of a streaming TV show will be released exclusively in cinemas.

Article

Community

Culture

Nationalism

Politics

2 March 2025

5 min read

Nationality can never unite a nation

For countless people, it’s a complicated thing.

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

A montage of two conversation participants side-by-side.

Fraser Nelson and Konstantin Kisin.

Triggernometry.

What does it mean to be English? A debate has broken out on this thorny question, sparked by a conversation between Konstantin Kisin and Fraser Nelson, where Kisin, a British-Russian social commentator suggested Rishi Sunak, as a ‘brown Hindu’, was British but not English, and Nelson (a Scot) said that it was simple – if you’re born and bred in England, you’re English. End of story.

The video on YouTube got 4 million views. Since then, Suella Braverman has weighed in with her instinct that despite being born and raised in England, she will never be truly English. The debate has generated more heat them light over these past weeks – just read the comments after Nelson-Kisin YouTube video to get the gist.

Now this is something I've thought about all my life, as it's been a bit of an issue for me.

I was born in England, have lived most of my life in England, my dad was English, I speak with an English accent, and love it when England beat the Aussies at cricket.

However, my mum was Irish. She was born and grew up in Limerick, met my dad in Dublin after he had moved to Ireland to train to be a Baptist minister. I never knew my father's family, as his parents had both died before I was born. So, the only family I knew in my childhood were Irish. Family summer holidays were spent in Dublin or most often in County Clare in the wild west of Ireland. Growing up, I felt at home in Bristol where we lived, with my English friends, supporting the mighty Bristol City at Ashton Gate. Yet the place where I felt most secure and rooted, at home in a different way, surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and people who had known my family for generations, was Ireland.

While my dad liked football, and we cheered when England won the World Cup in 1966, my mum was a big rugby supporter. So when it came to the Six Nations (or Five Nations as it was in those days) there was no question of who we followed, driving to Cardiff Arms Park or Twickenham, festooned in green scarves, cheering on the boys in green. I still do support Ireland, rooting for Peter O’Mahony and Caelan Doris as well as players in the team less Irish (at least by descent) than me, like New Zealanders James Lowe and Jamison Gibson-Park, the Australian Finlay Bealham, or the very un-Irish sounding, yet hero of the nation, Bundee Aki.

Of course, my story is far from unique. The Irish diaspora is everywhere. Irish people for centuries have left Ireland to find jobs, to see the world, or like my mum, following a spouse to different shores. There are loads of us, part-Irish, living in England, caught in our nationality somewhere in the middle of the Irish sea.

So am I English? Or am I Irish? I have held both passports, long before Brexit. I can sing God Save the Queen and Amhrán na bhFiann. The truth is that I'm a bit of both. Sometimes my Englishness comes to the fore, sometimes my Irishness. I remember being at school in the 1970s during the IRA bombing campaign and getting abuse and graffiti on my school locker for being Irish, then spending holidays in Ireland and being teased for sounding English. Such is the fate of the half-breed.

So for me, and for countless other people who have a mixed heritage, nationality is a complicated thing.

When nationality becomes the primary location of a person's reason for being, that's when it can become dangerous.

There are many different factors involved in a person's national allegiance: where they were born, where they grew up, where their parents or ancestors came from, where they decide to settle later in life. It can also be affected by emotions as varied as gratitude for a welcome received or resentment for rejection. Centuries ago, when people didn't travel much, and most didn't travel far from the place where they and their parents were born, the nation states that emerged in Europe and across the world out of the great empires of earlier times were relatively stable entities and could claim a degree of settled character, and a claim to loyalty. The twentieth century, with two world wars fought largely over nationality and race showed us the dark side of absolute loyalty to country or ethnic origins.

In today's hyper-mobile world, and especially in the UK, which is a magnet for people all over the world, there are probably very few people with simple, pure national heritage. Most of us have some migrant blood in our veins, stemming from some ancestors who moved from their home at some point in the past, seeking a better, or a different life elsewhere.

Being nationalistic or patriotic by supporting a sports team, learning a language, or being proud of one's origins is a good thing. Life would be a lot poorer without the possibility of rooting for your national team, taking pride in your national culture or history, feeling rooted in a particular place on this good earth. We were made to put down roots in a place, to care for it and take pride in it.

Yet nationality is too fluid and imprecise a concept to provide a firm sense of identity. When it becomes the primary location of a person's reason for being, that's when it can become dangerous. That's when we begin to fight wars over national sovereignty, identity and superiority.

Nationality can never become a strong enough centre to unite a people. It’s why the debate on ‘British values’ never quite lands. Even if we could decide what they are, is the implication that they are better than other values? And if they are does that give us the right to feel superior to other nations who don’t share them? And even if we could identify them, I imagine the French, the Germans or the Swedes would probably recognise a lot of them and claim them as their own.

To have a firm sense of identity, a centre around which to gather, requires a stronger and more unshakable foundation. I may be part English, part Irish, but I am wholly a child of God. Even more deeply rooted than my Irish mother and English father, the place of my birth or my family roots, lies my identity as someone whose true origin comes not from them but from the God who made me, continues to love me, and will hold me until my dying day and beyond. And unlike national identity, this identity can be true of anyone, therefore it’s not something I can ever use as a badge of superiority over anyone else.

That is who I am. Nothing can disturb or change it. And only something like that – something unshakable, independent of our changeable feelings and shifting allegiances can provide a firm basis for belonging and cohesion.

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