Critics praise Passion Play performed by the homeless

Critics have praised a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion fronted by homeless people, calling it ‘joyous’ and ‘astonishing’.

The production, staged at Manchester’s Campfield Market, featured a new finale by the leading Catholic composer Sir James MacMillan, with words written by the homeless themselves.

The 60-minute piece was directed by award-winning British filmmaker Penny Woolcock, who says her two great passions are opera – she has worked with the Met and the London Coliseum – and working with the homeless; she spent eight months on the streets of London making a film about homelessness. 

For the Easter production she worked alongside Streetwise Opera, an arts company that seeks to change the lives of the homeless through the opportunity to participate in opera.  In Manchester, where sleeping rough has doubled over the last year, the experience has been transformative for people like Danny Collins and Matt Reid, both members of the Passion cast: they say opera has made a massive difference to their lives.  “It’s like a big dream come true,” says Reed; while Collins says that, for the first time in many years, his friends and family are proud of him.

The Stage gave the production a 4/5 star review, singling out tenor Joshua Ellicott who it said “unfailingly carries the narrative” and called MacMillan’s finale “joyous”.

The Guardian also gave it 4/5 stars, and called the production “little short of astonishing”, praising Reid who it said, with his “hoarse, Mancunian accent and haunted eyes”, appeared exactly what the betrayer of Jesus was – “an ordinary guy destined by circumstances to commit an extraordinary act”. 

The Telegraph awarded it a more lukewarm 3/5, calling it a “worthy and worthwhile exercise” and reserving most of its praise for MacMillan’s  finale, which was the point where the cast lost their inhibitions and anxieties and “just sang a big tune straight from the heart”, it said.

In a blog about the preparations for the event, Woolcock said some of those performing were still sleeping rough “but they still make it in every day”.  Almost everyone, she said, was “struggling with both mental and physical frailities and some with addictions, and they are still giving their all.  It is immensely moving and I am in awe”. 

The performance is available on BBC iPlayer.