Making a song and dance about the nativity

A pedigree musical producer’s passion project casts a Hollywood prince in the role of Holy Land rock star regent. Krish Kandiah reviews the results.

Krish Kandiah

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

An angry monarch in a red breastplate and crown seethes towards the camera.

Antonio Banderas as King Herod.

It’s a teen drama. It’s a musical. It’s a classic good vs evil conflict. It’s a comedy. It’s a film. It’s a Christmas movie.

All six are rolled into one in the brilliant film, recently released, called Journey to Bethlehem.

Faith Palomo and Milo Mannheim star as teenagers Mary and Joseph, whose worlds collide with a turn of events that don’t at all match the plans they had for life and love and relationships.

In comes Lecrae, the American rapper, playing the Angel Gabriel – an unexpected visitor with some unexpected news given in a most unexpected way.

Meanwhile King Herod, played as a rock star regent by Antonio Banderas, can’t sleep. He is plagued by nightmares, and his biggest nightmare is about to come true when he receives news that his throne is under threat.

Three Persian Kings, a prince, a donkey, a star and a baby are about to make matters a whole lot worse for him – but better for everyone else. Unless, that is, King Herod’s soldiers can get to Bethlehem first.

In the middle of a global refugee crisis we are reminded that Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus have to pack all their belongings and flee Israel and head to the safety of Egypt.

The ancient storyline is pitch perfect for a musical makeover and who better to produce it than the director behind Glee, High School Musical 3, and Camp Rock and who has written songs for Miley Cyrus, The Back Street Boys and The Jonas Brothers and Pink. Adam Anders is a lifelong committed Christian and has been planning this movie with his wife for 17 years, hoping that they could make it a hit with people of all faiths and none.

Having watched the movie, I am pretty sure he has been successful. This week I hosted a special online schools’ event with Adam Anders, inspiring thousands of children across the UK to explore their musical gifts. He explained to them why he made the film:

“There are so many amazing movies that are colourful celebration musicals for the whole family at Christmas, but they don’t tell the story of Christmas. Santa is not why we celebrate Christmas. We got to make this family movie that everyone is going to love with great music, song and dance. I have children and I made it for them.”

The film doesn’t hold back from looking at some of the tough issues: in the middle of a global refugee crisis we are reminded that Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus have to pack all their belongings and flee Israel and head to the safety of Egypt. We are drawn into the challenges of being brought up in a patriarchal society and the societal expectations on young Mary to get married whatever her own ambitions and hopes might have been. We meet a megalomaniac dictator willing to kill children in order to have his way.
But at the heart of the film is the love story, “Mary and Joseph are the original Romeo and Juliet.” says Anders. “And that makes for a brilliant story with opportunities for some brilliant songs.”

I wholeheartedly recommend “Journey to Bethlehem”. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll jump. You’ll gasp. You’ll wonder. You’ll want to watch it over and over.

Snippet

Culture

Film & TV

Masculinity

19 March 2025

2 min read

Can we ever understand the ‘whydunnit’ of Adolescence?

An acclaimed Netflix series convicts the viewer.

Josh Richards

Josh is a curate in London, and is completing a PhD in theology.

A worried looking adolescent boy slumped in a chair looks up.

Netflix.

In the third episode of Adolescence Jamie, a teenager accused of murder, describes being taken to play football by his dad. He recounts how, whenever he would make a mistake, his dad would look away, seemingly ashamed. There's a pause. His interlocutor, a psychologist sent to assess him, says nothing. The boy challenges her. She's supposed to reassure him. She's supposed to say he wasn't ashamed. There is silence.

This moment captures the show's brilliance in microcosm. Each of the hour-long episodes was filmed in one-shot. There are no cuts away. There is no relief from the reality of a violent act and lives left shattered in its wake. We are forced to stay with the grief, the shame, the wreckage.

Neither does this approach offer any easy answers. Jack Thorne, who co-wrote the show with Stephen Graham, describes it as a 'whydunnit' as opposed to a whodunnit, and yet we end the series not fully understanding. Certainly, it is a show about male rage, about how men and boys are malformed by online misogyny. Rightly we are left asking questions about how a young boy's self-image and view of women can become so distorted. But the murder at the heart of the show is never completely explained.

The show denies us our attempts to explain this away—to make it someone else's problem. Adolescence refuses to comfort us by showing that, really, this is because of an abusive father or a neglectful mother or some other cause. Jamie's parents are imperfect but far from monstrous. They make the kind of mistakes any parent could make.

We cannot integrate this into a neat, therapeutic narrative. Doing so would allow us to exempt ourselves from responsibility. If that story is not our story, we are innocent. Self-contained plots reassure. This unsettles, invites a response.

Adolescence offers a much-needed invitation into a discussion about masculinity and violence. It also raises the possibility that, ultimately, any solution might be beyond us, that this fight might not simply be against flesh and blood, but against something more.

The evil found here is, yes, mundane but it is also mysterious. There is an ineffability to this evil and we cannot look away, and yet it is an evil for which we remain responsible. There is a primordial violence that exceeds and implicates every human heart. Adolescence leaves us convicted and longing for release, perhaps even for the love of a Father who will not look away.

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