Being Judas

On Good Friday of this year, the area’s local churches got together to perform a public Walk of Witness through the high street, recreating the capture, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus. In what would be my first public performance for about 25 years, I volunteered to play Judas. It’s a long gap in the CV, with my most recent credits the dual roles of Fat Man (typecasting) and Jackdaw in a stage production of C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew for a Christian youth theatre I was a part of as a lad. Previous to that, we’d put on display of street dance and mime for Saturday morning shoppers, right in the exact spot I’d be clubbing Christ round the back of the head with a baton some two-and-a-half decades on.

Whoa, hold on — “Christian?!” I hear you ask. “But you’re Blogging’s Bad Boy! A foul-mouthed enfant terrible who’s always slagging off God and making jokes about genitals! And now you’re in a Passion Play?!” Before we go any further, perhaps I should fill in a little of my background as regards religion.

My first experience of the church is one I don’t even remember. When my mum tried to arrange my Christening, she was refused by the vicar, for the sin of being an unmarried, single mother. He quoted the bible at her; the bit that goes “a bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.” Deemed unfit to be baptised, I grew up right around the corner from my aunt, uncle and five cousins; all Christians, whose lives were centred around the church. In fact, my oldest cousin, ten years my senior, ran the youth theatre for which I bodypopped outside of John Menzies in the early 90s. The writer/director of this year’s Walk of Witness is his younger brother. Growing up, their house was my second home, and while often a tornado of chaos from six boys pelting up and down the hall, much of my memories from that time involve tagging along to church events with my younger cousin, who was closest to my age.

I figured I believed in God, but I didn’t feel it like the other kids said they did. Though I never went to an actual church service, there were a stream of social events over the years, from youth nights to fundraisers to various one-offs. As was the fad then, I remember a lot of barn dances, a Comic Relief event involving a tin bath and some home-made gunge which fucking stank, and even a supposed ‘Halloween’ night I’ve talked about previously. Mostly, it was kickabouts at picnics down the local park, where my mum would be sat with my auntie, while I was off with the other kids, as the lone ‘non churchy’. Although, this vague edge-skirting was enough for me to get labelled a “bible basher” at school, even getting into a fight over it once. I remember shoving the other kid over, and thinking “it’s not even true…”

My prevailing sense of that church, even back then, is that most of the young leadership wanted to be on TV. Chris Evans was on his ascent, and they too were all big glasses and overt wackiness. Occasionally, I don’t know why, they’d come into our school and give ‘talks’ where they’d just recite, word-for-word, Trevor and Simon’s sketches from the previous weekend’s Going Live. One Christmas, I was in the audience for a panto they’d written, and there was bit of audience participation where I got picked out, and was asked to stand up. In my head, I was playing along with the banter, but after the show ended, one of the adults came up to me and told me, rather solemnly “he thought you were really going to hit him…”

However, in that community, my basic beliefs were never enough. Back then, I believed that God existed, and we go to Heaven when we die, or if we’re bad, down to Hell. But unlike all the other ten-year-olds who definitely understood the weight of what they were saying, I hadn’t accepted Christ into my life like they had, and so wasn’t saved. No matter how many times I showed my face, until I started doing it weekly on Sunday mornings, I was always an outsider, playing football with other little kids who’d tell me I was going to Hell; almost all of whom dropped religion entirely when they got to University. Even my younger cousin, all of twelve years old, once saw me looking at a magazine about UFOs. “You’re going to burn in Hell for reading that,” he said, with a weirdly authoritative sneer, “and I’m going to Heaven.”

As I got into my early teens, for a couple of years, I was involved in the summer kids’ club as a helper. One of my primary memories is of a time-filling bit where one of the adults asked if anyone had any jokes. This kid I knew from school put his hand up; the younger brother of a classmate I still see around town, now always murmuring to himself, with a thin ponytail right down to his back. The lady first got him to tell his joke into her ear, but obviously hadn’t quite heard as she handed him the live mic. “What do you call a Russian with three balls? Triple-nika-bollocka!” They rushed that stage to wrestle it from his hands like Herod was about to knife a newborn. My other prevailing memory is after packing down on the final day, being taken aside by one of my friend’s mums, and rather sternly told it was time to stop messing about and putting it off, and to give my life to Jesus. I remember telling her “I’m 13?” in a way that was both a statement and a question. A lifelong commitment seems a bit much when your body’s still yet to settle on a final shoe-size.

That church of my youth has long-since disintegrated, and I carried my basic beliefs with me into adulthood. It’s pretty hard, especially for someone from my generation, to have not been infused with that early faith, like the pink tinge from a red jumper that’s run in the wash. It comes first in the form of the easy answers from parents bombarded by a child’s questions of ‘why?’ Why is the sky blue? (God did it) Why are there trees? (God made them) Why did my goldfish die? (he went to Heaven) Also, the truth of a God was pushed by my junior school in a way which seems weird now, like it would make the papers. Each morning started with assembly, with its daily hymns and prayers; every song, every topic, a parable about God (apart from the one that went “milk bottle tops and paper bags…). Biblical stories and the personal beliefs of elderly teachers were presented as fact; as history. God made the Earth in seven days, and Noah filled the ark with animals before the flood, with no mention of Evolution until big school.

I was also surrounded by people who did believe, constantly reaffirming themselves and each other; people who yelled “praise the Lord!” if something good happened, or blamed the Devil if it didn’t. It was like living in the fantastical world of a movie, surrounded by angels and demons, who’d help you if you asked, or destroy you if you slipped. These kind of engrained childhood beliefs, told to you with conviction by adults — by people you trust — are sometimes hard to shake, like those who’ve got kids of their own by the time they realise the ice cream van doesn’t really play music to let you know it’s run out of stock. As such, they stayed with me until my early twenties.

Up to this point, I always looked at the Christians and just assumed that’d be me one day, fully part of this church community, and that all the ecstatic arm-waving and speaking in tongues would suddenly make sense, even though I never felt anything like they all seemed to, and always had these enormous doubts. Those, I ignored, because if there’s no God, then this is it, and we don’t get to meet up with our dead family members or pets, and we don’t get to hang out in paradise for literal eternity. If there’s no God, then dead means dead, and after a (short) lifetime of believing and being told otherwise, that was a horrifying prospect. Eventually, I realised the only thing propping up my most basic belief in a creator was the fear of death. So, I did a thought experiment. Put aside all the worry about not seeing your loved ones again, and of being snuffed out into nothingness, and now ask yourself what do you believe? “Nothing,” I thought, “not a word of it.”

I immediately felt the lifting of a great weight from my back. Thankfully, the quite Godless UK isn’t like many parts of the world in terms of ‘coming out’ as an atheist and immediately being disowned, but I kept it to myself within my family until after my uncle had died. I knew he so badly wanted me to feel something, and be a part of the church family too. Only a couple of years before, I’d looked after the house while they were away and he’d given me a version of the bible told in less archaic, more accessible language, and written a really nice inscription inside. I don’t think he’d have been disappointed in me as such, but at least in the situation, and that was enough.

My lack of belief is merely a friendly joke at the first rehearsal, mostly regarding how appropriate it is for an atheist to fill the role of Judas. It’s surprising to me how utterly reviled a character he is to the rest of the cast. It’s like name-checking Jimmy Savile. To me, who counts Jesus Christ Superstar among my absolute favourite films and musicals, Judas is the anti-hero. If he doesn’t grass up Christ and get him crucified, there’s no ascension, and no Christianity. And isn’t it all in God’s plan anyway? Pulling the strings to have himself sacrificed to himself? Anyway, the evening closes with a prayer while I loiter nearby, looking at flyers on the wall.

But (my cousin) Flix’s church isn’t the passive aggressive church of my childhood, and I’ve got many friends there. Not close friends — I don’t really do close — but I go to their houses on board game nights. I sit their dogs. Most of them are around my age, and we ingest the same pop-culture, and though I’m sure I’ve got a rep as a bit of a weirdo with a dark sense of humour, nobody’s offended that I don’t believe. That said, it does still happen occasionally; when someone realises they’re not gonna get you through the doors on Sunday and suddenly loses interest. About a decade ago, following a couple of family deaths in quick succession, my mum went on an Alpha course. She’d tell me all about the friends she made there, and the laughs they had, but decided the follow-up bible study course wasn’t for her. I accompanied her to a funeral, and watched as the Alpha group, sat together at a table, completely blanked her at the wake. Personally speaking, more than once, as the communication dries up, I’ve realised I was more of a soul-saving project than a friend.

But I’ve been involved with stuff there before; building bonfire floats, props for plays, stewarding and submitting work to various art shows and installations; and I’m sure there’s always a hope that my involvement will lead to some revelatory spark. I’m convinced half of them, who constantly see me helping out with these things yet never at a service, think I’m in the least conflicted; a curious near-believer who holds back out of stubbornness or embarrassment, and is due one of those born again origin stories, where you’re standing in the queue at Lidl thinking you might hang yourself when you get home, then suddenly there’s a flash of light and now you’re thrashing around on the floor in spiritual ecstasy. A friend once asked if I’d accompany them to see this showy American preacher who’d flown over from his Texas Megachurch for an evening talk, as they didn’t want to go alone. Fine, I thought. It might be interesting and maybe I could do a couple of funny tweets about it. They took a nap before the show, and ended up sleeping right through, leaving me stood waiting outside, sheepishly saying hello to loads of people who knew me as they went in, each with that look in their eye — “There he is again, still unable to take the leap. Atheist? A likely story.”

After the first rehearsal, my brain starts percolating. I was always in for two roles, quick-changing after Judas runs off and reappearing in scene two as a soldier. I fire off a message to Flix, asking what if there was a captain of the soldiers?! He could rile up the crowd, be yelling at the others to put the boots in, and generally be that prick bully-cop you get in every film; it’d be great. And like that, I’ve effectively badgered myself into a new, bigger part. It’s a collaborative process, and we’re given loose rein over how we want to interpret the narration, which is written in rhyme, and sprinkled with gags and funny local references. It’s great to watch everyone getting more assured in their roles, and finding new ways to get the story across with a movement or a look. Peter’s introduction sees him “creeping metre by metre” and at first the actor — a very soft-spoken and lovely older man named David — is unsure, so me and Flix demonstrate sneaking techniques. “Imagine a cartoon burglar,” I tell him, hunched over and balanced on my toes. By the next rehearsal, his creeping is a Scooby-Doo masterpiece. My embrace of Jesus begins as a simple hug, but over time, evolves into my taking him by the shoulders and rearing back for a final good look – “There’s my boy!” The old Mafia kiss of death.

Down to my core, I’m a frustrated performer. Most of my idols are writer/performers, working from their own material. I never wanted to be the great British novelist; I wanted to be Chris Morris or the League of Gentlemen. As much as I aspire to direct my own stuff, I always visualise myself being in it too. It’s my greatest pain that however articulate I come across on the page, in person, I feel I’m the opposite; marble mouthed, with a sinister manner and thuggish appearance. Thanks to my ADHD, my written work is woven together like a patchwork, frantically jumping about the page to tap a line for the ending, half a paragraph for the middle, two words at the beginning; opening another file for a different idea I’ve had while writing this one. Gradually, it all comes together, but that doesn’t work in the 3D world, where I’ve a dozen conversations going on in my head at once, and find it hard to focus on what I’m thinking, let alone saying or doing. Plus, I’m the kind of person who forgets how to walk if people are looking. This performance, with no scripted lines, and the freedom to develop my own moves, is the perfect jumping-in point for me.

Flix, on the other hand, bleeds confidence. When I was a kid, at eight years my senior, he seemed the coolest guy in the world. He had long hair and a leather jacket, and he drew comics (and still does). In adulthood, he’s got the quick-witted manner of an old pro gameshow host, utilised to its fullest in the play, which has the vibe of a medieval mummer’s farce. As one of the dual narrators, he jumps in and out of the fourth wall as a trickster; at one point, giving Peter a comedy uppercut to the gut as a visual demonstration of his guilt. Similarly, Gareth, a South African who’s playing Caiaphas, has an innate level of self-confidence that makes me wonder how much more I’d have achieved if I were like that. He’s an incredible deadpan, always riffing tall tales to bemused bystanders purely to amuse himself. On the first rehearsal, he nonsensically introduces himself to the lady playing Mary as “Laurel.” With this ability to flatly sell a ridiculous lie, he’s a man after my own heart. During the 2012 Olympics, I successfully got various people to believe that instead of building 300 toilets for the Olympic village, they’d accidentally built one massive toilet, thirty storeys high. “You can only get up by helicopter! It takes a dozen people to weigh the flush down. What a waste of money…”

At one point, at the behest of a cast member, a line gets changed from “…these bloody Romans” to “rotten Romans.” It reminds me of the time someone from the church told me how I’m always making jokes on Twitter, yet they’d never heard me say anything funny in real life. I explained I’m working at about 5% comic capacity with the church crowd. Most of my material is about paedos or spunk, and in that company, it’s a rare punchline that pops in my head and is appropriate to leave my mouth.

By now, rehearsals have moved to the high street, where we’ll be performing. Our town, particularly the centre, has something of a reputation. While the very concept of the British high street is dying, ours is especially rasping and skeletal; a parade of pubs, bookies, and charity shops, sandwiched between vacant properties, thanks to slumlord business rates and extortionate parking charges. The comment section of the local paper is a daily flood of references to the ubiquitous town centre drunks, by pearl-clutchers who think you’ll be killed if you walk through there without a police escort. Though that is mostly bollocks, a friend of mine was murdered a year ago, albeit in his own home. It should also be noted that the Good Friday performance is a postponement from last Easter, after a triple-stabbing involving a group of teenagers, two days before. At the time our Jesus would have been walking past Superdrug, buckled and beaten, someone who’d lay in the same spot, bleeding for real, only 48 hours earlier, was still in intensive care, so the decision was taken to pull it.

This year’s prep sees the same problem as 2018’s, with numerous cast members skipping on rehearsals. Half the reason I muck into this stuff is because, while the church has a congregation of about 400, it’s a scant handful who actually volunteer to help, leaving friends who’re running the things to shoulder the weight themselves. Most nights see a core crew of the narrators, Ciaphas, Peter, and Judas, but we’re constantly having to fill in for others. By now, I know Jesus’ part better than my own. Due to my being the right height and the most Jesus-y looking, a photo exists somewhere from last year’s aborted run, of me testing out the cross, and being crucified outside of The Dolphin — a pub which cites itself the most haunted in Britain, and in which I once displayed a painting for a local arts festival, depicting Bill Cosby suffering a guilt-induced nosebleed.

We run through it in the high street once a week on evenings, moving between the four locations, from the old arcade, where an alcoholic ex-neighbour died after falling and hitting his head, and up to the millennium clock tower. The first rehearsal earns a round of applause from a homeless couple sleeping in the doorway of the abandoned off-license. The following week is the town in its full comment-section pomp, with rowdy drunks and gangs of spitting youths asking “What you doin’?” On my cue line, a motorbike rolls through and cuts off my entrance. A group of kids on bikes stand nearby, curiously watching for a while, before loudly (and one assumes not entirely seriously) bemoaning how there’s “no fuckin’ decent heroin in this shit town!” It’s 5pm on a Sunday evening when a man with flammable breath accosts me, to ask what I’m wearing on my face — at my suggestion, the soldiers hide their faces beneath Antifa style bandanas. He’s in a football shirt and aiming a finger at my chest, as he demands to know what the crucifix symbolises. “Literally what you see,” I say, “it’s a big a cross for a man to go on.” He’s angered by this; angered by us and our ungodly display, and begins quoting verses in Latin, as though putting on a curse. He staggers off over the zebra crossing, berating us all the way. Moments like this, I feel like Winston at the end of Ghostbusters — “I love this town!”

While this is all going on, I’m suffering a medical issue. Another fun accoutrement of my ADHD is that I constantly grind my teeth, especially at night. Last year, one tooth either side on the bottom finally crumbled from the constant pressure. One eventually fell out in broken shards, but the other, with its top half sheered off by decades of grinding, needles away in my jaw like a hot nail. The dentist is another thing I can’t afford, so I’ve just been riding it out. I’ve never had so much as a filling before, but shattering the tooth in half has left the nerves exposed. It comes and goes, but there have been a couple of bad bouts lately, where the pain’s so excruciating, I can’t think, much less be able to remember cue lines or emote. One week out, the pain’s mostly subsided, though the surrounding gum has become grotesquely swollen. Fearful of it hurting on Good Friday, I spend the next seven days gingerly swallowing a careful diet of yoghurt, instant mash, and Ibuprofen, constantly rinsing my mouth with salt water to stave off infection.

The day before, I’m getting slightly antsy, strapped into a front row seat at the anxiety brain-cinema, which projects a calamitous reel in your mind of every possible thing that could go wrong. What if I go light-headed on my entrance through sudden nerves, and end up fainting or vomiting? Might all that yoghurt come spurting out of my mouth and nose and arse? I have to step up on a platform to embrace Jesus, but maybe I’ll slip, like Jennifer Lawrence at the Oscars, except not sexy enough to get away with it. The cardboard batons I made as a practise stand-in have been replaced with the final prop; lethally heavy wood, sawn from a broom handle. Shit, just imagine KOing Jesus for real by mistake.

Late Thursday evening, final on-location run-through sees people filming us on their phones. “Where’s the fuckin’ nails?!” asks a woman so drunk, only the chemists’ window is keeping her vertical. Each scene incites heckling from passers by, most inebriated, and some with a level of anger and offense that I find surprising. It’s funny, but I’ve written before about how irritated I’ve been by public displays of Christianity when I’m trying to go about my business, and yet here I am. As Ciaphas addresses Jesus, who’s stood up on the flowerbeds, a woman sat outside the cafe next door says “bunch of weirdos” loud enough for us to hear, and I think back to pushing that kid over in year seven. But it’s all still frivolous, and we’re mostly mucking about. Then, at the final scene, the lady playing Jesus’ grieving mother falls to her knees, weeping and wailing as though her son really is being crucified. It’s a sudden injection of emotion, and I catch Ciaphas’s eyes in unspoken agreement that, man, she’s really going for it.

Good Friday comes and it’s the earliest I’ve set an alarm in years. My tooth is fine, and so’s the weather. I go light on the wax to ensure my hair’s looking particularly biblical. Of the various Judas portrayals I watched, visually, I think I can pull off the young Ian McShane. At least, from a distance. We’re prepping in a nearby church, and everyone’s here. Mary, Peter, Ciaphas, Pilate, the soldiers, the accusers, Jesus — last week, he told me “social justice warriors are the real fascists,” and that he’s a huge fan of Donald Trump. I can’t tell if he’s winding me up, or trying to motivate my kicking him down the high street later. Some of the cast have been fasting for Lent. I had a mini pork pie before I left the house.

We get moved from a side hall into the main church because of 9:30 Tai Chi. It’s a proper old church with gorgeous architecture; a huge, complex roof and stained-glass window; upper balconies with ornately detailed railing. Its layout is a maze of seemingly endless corridors, side-rooms and tunnels, presumably from various extensions over the years. It’s here the pre-performance prayer goes on for quite some time, as a reminder of our differing motivations. Obviously, there’s a far deeper meaning for the others — who feel they’ve a personal relationship with the lead character — than there is for me, for whom a retelling of the crucifixion is as emotionally resonant as acting out King Arthur or Rumpelstiltskin. I remember seeing Mel Gibson’s Passion at the cinema with my younger cousin and asking, pretty simplistically, “doesn’t it feel weird; like seeing your mate getting killed onscreen?” They have a deep connection to the material, and see this as a way to reach the godless masses, by invading their high street for an hour. For them, this is evangelism. I just want to put on a good show. Although I figure I should clear my pop-culture-addled brain until we’re done. If I start crying at the crucifixion, they’ll never believe it’s because it reminds me of Gannicus’s at the end of Spartacus: Blood and Sand.

As it’s Friday, the artisan market’s on, narrowing the main thoroughfare, which seems unnervingly empty as we march through towards the starting point. A drummer beats out a rhythm, as Flix clambers up poles and onto walls, plying for trade with his megaphone, like Barnum in a medieval jester’s hat. When we arrive, it’s absolutely heaving with people; a full house. I spot a few faces I know. My mum’s right in the front. Flix, the old pro, is now up a ladder and doing crowd work; gags and “where you from?” and pointing out the emergency exits in case of a fire (“everywhere… we’re outside!”) I’m pacing like a caged animal waiting for my cue, just wanting it to be over so I know I haven’t fucked it up. I calm myself by stroking a passing greyhound. Then, “…and there can be no doubt…”

That’s my line. I push my way through, flanked by a pair of soldiers. Despite taking almost 6,000 words to write about it, it’s a small role, and with little time to impart the emotional beats, we’re playing panto and broad, so I swagger in like an absolute prick. Boos rain down as I embrace Jesus and smugly watch his arrest. Thirty pieces of silver (big washers in a velvety Dungeons & Dragons dice bag) are tipped in my lap, falling onto the ground. I scratch and scrabble for them on my hands and knees like a rodent, biting a coin to check that it’s real, before scurrying out of scene. I don’t shoot yoghurt out of my anus. I don’t trip. I throw on the red shirt and bandana of a soldier, running with the crowds to be part of scene two. By the time I get there, the first line’s already been spoken, as I briefly stopped to stroke a dog outside the cafe, and enter the scene wiping the wetness of its nose from the back of my hand.

Peter’s brilliant sneaking gets a huge laugh, as does the local flavour from Jesus’s accusers, who denounce him for parking on double yellows on Beach Road, feeding the seagulls down the pier (despite warning signs), and not picking up his dog dirt in a nearby park. I’m background here, with my baton cocked over my shoulder, threateningly stalking. I feel more comfortable under a mask. When we rehearsed this bit last night, someone outside the cafe pointed towards me and said “he’s really scary.” Scene 3 is heavy on action. I waffle Jesus over the back of the head, thankfully not cracking him for real. We lay in punches with red ribbons folded in our fists, which Jesus grips the ends of as we yank them out, giving the theatrical appearance of arterial blood spray. I place the crown of thorns on his head with a sarcastic curtsey, having spend the previous afternoon Googling “how to curtsey like a proper lady” and practising.

From here, we lead Jesus along the high street, cross over his shoulder and staggering as the crowd follows down behind us. I clank my baton off lamp posts, running it against the caged shutter of an abandoned shop, and hitting it against the cross. Halfway down, just as I choreographed, Jesus collapses. I put my foot on his back, pushing him down. “Get up!” I goad. “Get up, King of the Worms!” A weird Joker laugh comes out of me, as I prod my baton into the nape of his neck. Once at the cross, the other soldiers tie him in place, and I spend so long eyeballing him, I almost forget to take my final position. When it comes to a close, a trumpet kicks in, leading the audience into a rendition of Amazing Grace. Somehow, we all forget to take Jesus down first, leaving the poor messiah stuck up there playing dead for three verses, holding himself up with the rope around his hands. Later, he tells me he kept his head down because the trumpet was making him laugh — “It made me think of Coronation Street.”

Of course, as the local vicar comes on for the ending sermon, encouraging non-believers to seek out Christ, he’s right by my side, my mask now down, captured at the right hand of God’s envoy in all photographic evidence of the day. Afterwards, familiar faces from the church tell me I’ve done well, while assuming I’m there as I’ve finally seen the light.

     “Are you a Christian now?!”

     “No, just here to help.”

     “So you still don’t believe in God?!”

     “Nope.”

     “Well, He believes in you!”

As much as I don’t believe, it pales to how hard nobody seems to believe that I don’t. As they serve refreshments, Ciaphas’s wife jokes that they won’t let me leave until I’ve converted. By now, the others have dispersed back to their groups, with warm greetings and bracing hugs. My younger cousin’s there, and we exchange nods from across the room. Someone walking past rears away from me in mock fright – “Argh, Judas!” As I knew I would, now it’s over, I feel rather melancholy and empty. The one thing I most remember from those plays back in the day was the sense of camaraderie. One of my weird emotional triggers is that I sometimes tear up just at the credits of a movie, even if it’s shit, and certainly at the end of theatrical performances, appreciating how it’s this big piece of art made by lots of people working together. That bit at the end of the League of Gentlemen live DVDs where they take a bow is as crippling to me as Bambi’s mum or Spider-Man turning to dust. Creating is all I do; all I care about. Only, I don’t do it as a group, but in 12 hour working days, hunched over a keyboard and leaving the flat once a month. Now this is over, that’s where I’m headed back to. I’ve said many times to those trying to get me into the church that I enjoy their company, it’s just a shame they don’t meet up every week for a different reason. I lurk by the organ sipping from a bottle of water as the acoustics of the church echo with conversation. Even after being a part of this, collaborating across the yawning divide of belief, for me, there is no God; I just like making things. And for a little while, at least, that was enough.

…

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~ by Stuart on May 27, 2019.