Faith

As the BBC screens the latest dramatisation of the Easter Story, the Bishop of Sherborne talks to BBC Dorset about his favourite screen adaptation of the Passion  and what it means to him.

For the Right Reverend Tim Thornton, who's the most senior Anglican cleric in Dorset, Dennis Potter's 1969 BBC screen-play "Son of Man" starring Colin Blakely was the winner.

He said, "It was very provocative at the time. The character playing Jesus was a very real, ordinary man in fact you could say quite an ugly looking man who was full of emotion and quite angry. I think that helped me a lot to imagine the reality of what happened."

Stained glass window in Sherborne Abbey

Equally the bishop said that a documentary he watched about the Turin Shroud, where the programme-makers examined marks which could have come about as a result of torture, had a profound impact on him.  

Tim Thornton isn't a fan of gore which is why when asked about his preferred version of the last few days of Jesus' life he didn't pick Mel Gibson’s 2004 blockbuster, "The Passion of the Christ".

He said that he'd deliberately not watched the Mel Gibson film because it dwelled too much on the gore.

On Maundy Thursday, congregations will be taking part in a Passover meal to mark the Last Supper.

On Good Friday itself, Christians will be attending church to reflect on the crucifixion and what that means to their faith. That’s ahead of a day of celebration on Easter Sunday.