god on trial

I finally got round to watching God On Trial last night and what a piece of television it was.  Even though I was watching, knackered at 1.20am with the sign language interpreter taking up a fair chunk of the screen I was absolutely hooked.

Based on a story, which was written about by survivor Elie Wiesel, that a group of Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz put together a court and put God on trial for breaking His covenant with the Jewish people.  The play asked questions about God’s will and whether man has free will.  Is Hitler God’s servant, the Holocaust the equivalent of the flood that God sent?  Why do Jewish people think that they have a special agreement with God?  Is God just and is he good?   After taking testament from Rabbis, scholars, criminals and lawyers the court found God guilty.

The acting was immense, the direction superb but the real quality of this was the writing of Frank Cottrell Boyce.  It was writing that made me question my lack of faith and forced me to think long after the programme had ended.  Such a stunning use of the English language.  I often think I could write a play or an episode of a soap opera and then I am faced with talent like this and realise I haven’t got a hope in hell of being as clever or as engaging.  Christ, there was even a couple of laugh out loud jokes!

The only problem I had with the whole thing was that four times in the hour and half programme or television play as Wikipedia have called it, background music suddenly started playing.  I don’t know if it was to add tension or whether whoever wrote the score had the BBC over a contractual barrel or what, but it was massively unnecessary and if anything took away from the drama.  Perhaps I have been spoiled by the Wire, in which the only music you hear comes from a source in the scene, like a jukebox in a bar or a car radio.  The actors in God On Trial were so high quality, particularly Anthony Sher and Rupert Graves that they certainly didn’t need any help in building tension.

Oh, and much kudos to BBC Scotland for getting behind it.  I always tend to think of McBeeb as really parochial and unwilling to take risks in the same way that BBC Wales does but they deserve every plaudit that comes their way for this.

If you ever see it scheduled on the telly again, even if it is first thing in the morning and with sign language or dubbed into French then make sure you watch it.