By Jo Roberts From Kent Online

13 May 2015 – Everyone loves the carnival atmosphere of a festival, bringing together music, the arts and, of course, food.

But man cannot live by bread alone and the church is presenting a festival of faith this weekend that caters for the soul as well as the senses, themed ‘Food for the journey’.

The Gathering will kick off on Friday, May 15 with a theatre show pairing the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, in a cookery demonstration with TV chef Dev Biswal, discussing the part food can play in the service of others and the need that food banks are currently meeting.

Then there’s a takeover of Canterbury Cathedral on Saturday, May 16, as The Gathering delivers not only a mix of arts, entertainment, worship music and talks but also features the acclaimed Biblical theatre group Wintershall Players performing key scenes from the life of Christ.

Including a dramatisation of the Lord’s Supper, it will star Kent actor James Burke-Dunsmore, who not only portrays Jesus in this production but has spent the past 18 years inhabiting the role of Jesus in passion plays and gospel dramatisations across the globe.

James Burke-Dunsmore plays Jesus
James told What’s On about the responsibility and the personal effect that playing the son of God brings with it and why the Canterbury Cathedral show is a homecoming of sorts.

You’ve got roots here in Kent, haven’t you James?
“Yes I grew up in Chislehurst and got to know Kent very well throughout my childhood. My parents moved to Ramsgate a long time ago and we regularly go to Canterbury. I haven’t performed at the cathedral before, but as soon as I walked in I thought, ‘What an extraordinary space’, particularly when you saw it without any pews or chairs. When we rehearse at Wintershall in Surrey we will stake out the cathedral in a field so that we can rehearse it.”

You studied scientific illustration at college, so how did acting become your livelihood?
“Even while I was studying I was doing drama work. I haven’t really stopped since I was a child. When I was six, somebody stuck a ginger beard on me and I performed as a caveman at school. Every school play after that and then joining theatre companies afterwards, just fuelled it. Slowly my appreciation became a bit more sophisticated. I realised that people had strong feelings about theatre. It was a very visceral part of our lives.”

What other parts did you take on before you started to specialise in Jesus?
“I did some Shakespeare. I played Macbeth and then Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice. I did some American writers, some Noel Coward and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, which I thoroughly enjoyed.”

How did the first Jesus role come about?
“I certainly didn’t expect to be asked to play Jesus. I really went along just to help with the play because I knew quite a bit about art history and the depiction of Christianity in the arts. I’m not really sure what they saw in me, but by the end of the meeting people were pointing the finger at me and saying, ‘He’ll play Jesus’.

Was it because you look the part?
“I didn’t have long hair then. Over the last 18 years, I think I’ve depicted Jesus in about 50 or 60 different productions and with those I get to experiment with the way that he looks. I make a different crown of thorns with every production, because I’m keen that I never repeat too much of an interpretation of Christ’s teaching, so a new crown of thorns reminds me this is a new portrait of Christ. The look is a tiny fragment of it. That’s just a device to help the audience to focus. It’s the behaviour that is the most difficult thing to try to get right.”

Was that first production in which you played Jesus a Wintershall production?
“Yes, it all started with Wintershall. Then as people trusted me and saw that I was working year-in, year-out and producing new portrayals, people started inviting me to help them with their passion plays in different cities and towns. Now I go to different countries, whether I’m playing Jesus or directing them. I’m currently designing a stage for a production in Grand Cayman. Many of us at Wintershall have worked with each other for 10 years or more. When you’ve told the story so repeatedly, it goes so much deeper into you.”

How much of a responsibility lingers on to behave in a certain way when you’re off-duty?
“The line that divided the storytelling and life was rubbed out a long time ago. You stop calling it work. I have to go to great lengths to switch off really. It often happens when I go to the theatre myself and see something utterly extraordinary, but that’s quite rare. I have to be taken by surprise. All my understanding of the importance of this story has come from telling it over and over. Having the parables in my head and in my heart and in my very being means that, whether I’m aware of it or not, they steer me. They influence me, they get me into trouble sometimes and make me more bold than I would perhaps like to be.”

It sounds like you lead a fairly nomadic lifestyle, a bit like Jesus himself did?
“I don’t have a family but going abroad and far afield, that is led by invitation. I’d be quite happy to sit in my studio and paint all my life, but if the invitations come I feel churlish to say no. As for the lifestyle, it’s hard to know how different your life is from other people’s but I do work odd hours, I’ll tell you that.”

Your conditions don’t always sound fantastic. I read about performing in snowstorms and an actor accidentally breaking your leg in the crucifixion scene – an extreme case of ‘the show must go on’?
“It must. The conditions are brutal sometimes. When I wake up and it’s lashing with rain or sleeting, I know that people will come whatever the weather now. The transference of the story through rain, wind or blistering sunshine – in Australia and South Africa we were sunburnt – outdoors in the elements feels so real. Sometimes there’s an audience of 20,000 people dressed for the elements and they will work as hard as you to receive the story.”

IMAGES:
Archbishop of Canterbury the Right Reverend Justin Welby
James Burke-Dunsmore plays Jesus

For more on this story go to: http://www.kentonline.co.uk/whats-on/news/soul-food-city-festival-36814/

See also related iNews Cayman story published May 11 2015 “World renowned director to stage the Nativity in Cayman Islands” at: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/world-renowned-director-to-stage-the-nativity-in-cayman-islands/