The RSC has joined with Coventry UK City of Culture to create an engaging form of promenade theatre that explores the nature of faith. Mark Lawson keeps pace with the live performances

The RSC has joined with Coventry UK City of Culture to create an engaging form of promenade theatre that explores the nature of faith

On a muggy, fitfully sunny late summer day, a crowd has gathered on both sides of the stepped terrace that divides the roofless ruins of Coventry’s medieval cathedral from Sir Basil Spence’s breathtaking 1962 replacement, its latticed walls combining the solidity of red sandstone with the delicacy of lace.

We are listening to an ecological prophet, a young woman speaking of the jeopardy to city and planet from human greed. Such admonitory oratory could be heard in many city centres on a Saturday morning; the difference here is the size of the speaker’s audience – 250-plus – and that they have paid to hear her.

Green campaigner Jasmine (Sarah Cullum) is a character in The Return, one of four new plays world-premiered in Coventry last Saturday as part of Coventry’s year as UK City of Culture 2021. The pieces – two each by Chris O’Connell and Chinonyerem Odimba – have the umbrella title “Faith”, a concept the dramatists were invited to explore as broadly as they wished. The live performances coincided with open days at around two dozen of the city’s spiritual venues – Catholic, Islamic, Anglican, Sikh, Methodist, Quaker, Baptist, Humanist, United Reformed.

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