When Jesus walked in Leicester Square

As the The Chosen’s latest series premieres, Natalie Garrett analyses the TV show’s appeal.

Natalie Garrett

Natalie produces and narrates The Seen & Unseen Aloud podcast. She's an Anglican minister and a trained actor.

A group of actors walk together at a film premiere

Jonathan Roumie, centre, with the cast of The Chosen.

So, I’ve met Jesus twice before. Over 20 years ago, I joined the cast of The Life of Christ at Wintershall, the epic outdoor drama experience that takes you through the story of Jesus’ life (and it’s still going strong). As well as being Crowd Person 176, with glorified tea towel on head, I was cast as the bride at the wedding at Cana. Apart from Jesus, the rest of the cast were local, normal people (as in not professional actors) and I rather shyly attended the first rehearsal knowing no-one. I had been sitting on my own for a bit when Jesus walked in and caught my eye. He walked straight over to me and shook my hand, “You must be Natalie,” he said. For just a moment, I forgot that he was an actor and I thought, “You really are Jesus, you know me by name!” But then I remembered that I was the only new addition to the cast, and he was just a really nice guy welcoming me to the company.

Some eight or so years later, I was involved with the Oxford Passion, a Passion play written for and produced by Creation Theatre company in Oxford. I helped write the script and played the role of Mary Magdalene. The actor, Tom Peters, who played Jesus in that production was incredible. As an actor and as a Christian, it was an extraordinary experience, sharing some powerful scenes with Jesus. Each night for several weeks, I had to watch my beloved Christ being crucified all over again. I wept deeply, every night.

Then fast forward to Monday 22 January 2024, and I’m at the cinema UK cinema Premiere of season four of The Chosen in London’s Leicester Square and I see Jesus walk the red carpet. Surreal.

So, there I was, in all my finery, lurking about, hoping to get a selfie with Jesus.

In case you haven’t come across The Chosen, it’s a ground-breaking historical drama series. Created, directed, and co-written by filmmaker Dallas Jenkins, it is the first multi-season series about the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. Primarily set in Judaea and Galilee in the first century, the series centres on Jesus and the different people who met and followed or otherwise interacted with him. The emphasis is on portraying the “authentic Jesus” through the point of view of the people who spent time with him, asking the question, what did it really look like to be a follower of Jesus? It has quickly become a highly successful crowdfunding project, with episodes viewed 700 million times and a big vision to reach a billion viewers by the end of season seven.

Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus in The Chosen, says,

“Our fanbase was entirely Christian at first, but because of its popularity the show has attracted people from all faiths and no faith to the character of Jesus. We’re trying to really portray his message of love and tender mercy.”

To raise awareness for the show, which can be streamed on Netflix and Amazon Prime (or for free on The Chosen app), season four was launched with a cinema release in Leicester Square. So, there I was, in all my finery, lurking about, hoping to get a selfie with Jesus. And I had to pinch myself. When did Jesus become a world-wide celebrity with people whooping and whistling and jostling for his attention? Well, it happened when he rode a donkey into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday, but not so much in the last 2,000 years, especially not in recent years in the West.

What have the creators of The Chosen got so right that millions of people tune in to binge watch the narrative of the gospel story?

First up, Jesus laughs. A lot. He smiles and he hugs people. He is intensely personable and bloke next door-y (he’s not very good at ball games for one thing). But he also, when necessary, exerts huge personal authority. There is a confident, courageous, generous, humility to him that is hugely attractive. When the going gets tough, you think, he’d be good to have around. But also, he’s great company around the dinner table, telling stories and listening, too.

Because of the way the story is told, through the eyes of those who knew Jesus, we get drawn into the personal dramas of the Twelve Disciples as well as a wider group, including several women. It even includes some Romans, who are clearly the “bad guys” but drawn equally plausibly as the other more sympathetic characters. In the lives of these people, we find the domestic reality of the human experience – working hard to put food on the table, relating to family members, suffering illness and even miscarriage. And then we see the difference that it makes to have the Son of God around. And that’s the hook, that’s what means the viewer becomes deeply invested in the show because it turns out the people in the Bible aren’t super spiritual giants, they are people just like you and me. They struggle with the day-to-day realities of life, they’re confused, and they mess up. And then they meet Jesus.

It’s a huge risk creating a show when everyone knows how it ends. As we watch, even the early seasons, we know where the narrative arc is going. And yet, somehow, we still want to find out what happens. Because: we are invested in the stories of the Roman Centurion who looks as if he might come over to the light side; we’re keen to find out how Simon Peter and his wife get over their marital difficulties; we’re cheering for the success of the olive oil business set up by Zebedee (that’s James and John’s Dad) along with the help of some shrewd businesswomen who are also numbered amongst The Chosen.

When I see a dramatized version of any book I’ve read, I usually get quite angry – “that’s not what he/she looks like! That’s not how they talk!” And dramatizing part of the bestselling book of all time, the four Gospels of the Bible, is quite a risky choice for a TV programme. But I recognise the Jesus in The Chosen as the Jesus I know and love. And there is no higher accolade I can give than that.

The extraordinary success of the show is that millions of people have watched it and been drawn in. Millions of people have invested not just their time and viewing commitment, but also their own money. The show is entirely crowdfunded, and the show’s makers are deeply committed to building community around what they’re doing. Fans are invited to participate in the crowd scenes (being the 5,000 who get fed, for example) and there is almost as much behind-the-scenes content produced as the show itself. There’s a buzz around what they’re doing and it’s spreading way beyond the homes of a Christian fanbase.

When Jonathan Roumie arrived for the season four premiere in Leicester Square, it was like a rock star had stepped out of the car, such was the reach and excitement around his portrayal of Jesus in The Chosen. For hundreds of years, Christian artists have used the creative arts at their disposal – stained glass windows, music, fine art – to try to convey the authentic Jesus to the world. In our time, TV programmes are the artform of greatest impact and the digital distribution now available to the makers of The Chosen affords unprecedented access to their material around the world, as they aim to dub it into 600 languages ensuring 95 per cent of people worldwide can watch it spoken in their native language.

Is it too soon to suggest that The Chosen may be the Sistine Chapel of our age? It’s certainly too early to try guess the impact that this cultural phenomenon will have on the world’s faith journey. But if the reaction on the red carpet at Leicester Square last Monday night is anything to go by, Jesus seems to be making a comeback.

Episodes 1&2 of season four of The Chosen are showing in UK cinemas from Thursday 1 February 2024 - with other episodes being released later in the month. This is the first time ever that a full season of a streaming TV show will be released exclusively in cinemas.

Review

Art

Culture

Identity

26 January 2024

6 min read

How the incomer’s eye sees identity

A re-invigorated art gallery highlights synergies between ancient texts and current issues.

Jonathan Evens

Jonathan is Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell. He is co-author of The Secret Chord, and writes on the arts.

A painting depicts a round table in a room. Those sitting around it rise up as a Christ figure enters.

Horace Brodzky, Supper at Emmaus.

Ben Uri Gallery and Museum.

Ben Uri was founded in 1915 in London’s Whitechapel and was named after Bezalel Ben Uri, the craftsman who designed and built the Ark of the Covenant.

Originally it was an art venue for Jewish immigrant artists who were unable to gain access to mainstream art societies at that time. Today it has been reimagined and relaunched, becoming an expansive digital platform designed to be the first stop for information on Jewish, refugee and immigrant artists, designers, dealers and scholars who have made significant contributions to the rich and diverse British cultural mosaic.

In 2023, I curated an online exhibition for Ben Uri exploring migration themes in Biblical images drawn from their Collection.

Themes of identity and migration feature significantly in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles and images from these Bibles are a substantive element of the Ben Uri Collection. As a result, the exhibition that I curated, Exodus & Exile: Migration Themes in Biblical Images, includes a range of Biblical images from the Collection. This is in order to explore migration themes through consideration of the images, the Bible passages which inspired them and the relationship between the two. The images are presented broadly in the order that the stories on which they are based appear in either the Hebrew or Christian scriptures.

The combination of images and texts I selected from the Ben Uri Collection enabled a range of different reflections, relationships and disjunctions to be explored. These include the aesthetic, anthropological, devotional, historical, sociological and theological. The result is that significant synergies can be found between the ancient texts and current issues. In this way, stories and images which may, at first, appear to be describing or defining specific religious doctrines can be seen to take on a shared applicability by exploring or revealing the challenges and changes bound up in the age-old experience of migration. This was important in writing for an audience including people of all faiths and none, and in writing for an organisation which seeks to surpass ethnic, cultural and religious obstacles to engagement within the arts sector.

“Most of what we’d today call migration is in the Bible, and it’s through migration, not in spite of it, that revelation occurs.”

Sam Wells

Engaging in a dialogue between images and texts and with an audience made up of people of all faiths and none, can be revelatory for all involved, particularly those doing the writing. In an essay related to the exhibition, about which I will say more shortly, I discuss the impact of émigré artists, many of whom were Jewish, who contributed artworks that greatly enriched British culture and churches. Another example of someone impacted by the insights of those from another faith community is that of Lord Maurice Glasman, who has written of the part played by Catholic social thought in restructuring his politics, ethics and orientation of thought. He writes that: “It established the Common Good – a negotiated settlement between estranged interests – as the ultimate end of politics. It is Catholic social thought that has guided me through the 2008 crash, Brexit and now the coronavirus. It has been my inspiration and I will be eternally grateful to Catholics and the Church. It was a very generous gift. In the darkest moments, it lights the way.”

Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, argues that the Bible itself is founded on six journeys, all of which have a bearing on themes of migration: “Jacob and his entourage migrate to Egypt in the midst of famine. This is an economic migration, but really it’s a journey of survival. Moses and the children of Israel migrate from Egypt to the Promised Land. They leave as refugees to flee slavery. They take 40 years to reach their destination, and, when they get there, they face a very hostile environment indeed. Judah loses a battle and is displaced 500 miles to Babylon. There, as Daniel shows, exiles play a vibrant role in public life, and bring unique qualities, represented by the ability to interpret dreams. Jesus travels from Galilee to Jerusalem. He’s living during the occupation by an invading power, Rome. Finally, Paul migrates from Jerusalem to Rome. He’s searching for legal protection in an empire where citizenship transcends geography.” His conclusion is that “most of what we’d today call migration is in the Bible, and it’s through migration, not in spite of it, that revelation occurs”. As a result, we don’t get Judaism or Christianity without migration.

Many of these artists were part of a remarkable generation of refugees from Nazi-dominated Europe who contributed artworks that greatly enriched British culture and churches.

Wells’ approach is one that I adopted in exploring migration themes through Biblical images in the Ben Uri Collection and many of the journeys he mentions feature in the exhibition images. The images I chose, begin with an L. Michèle Franklin watercolour of Adam and Eve. In her image they are naked with heads in hands, lamenting their loss, as they leave Eden. This is an archetypal image of forced migration, with those who have become migrants mourning the loss of the home they loved. The creation stories contained in the Bible quickly lead to a founding act of exile as Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden of Eden. One reading of this story suggests that we are all migrants, outside of a truly harmonious relationship with the world we inhabit but looking to return to our harmonious origins.

The exhibition ends with Horace Brodzky’s 'Supper at Emmaus', an image which comes at the end of a journey and depicts the moment of realisation that the one who had been lost and mourned had in fact been with the travellers throughout their journey. As a result, the realisation comes that what we seek may be with us on the journey or Exodus we undertake, rather than awaiting us at the end. This realisation results in a new journey for the exiles and a return to their people and purpose.

In between come stories of migration in the lives and experiences of the artists who created the images included in the exhibition, with aspects of those stories becoming entwined with the Biblical narratives depicted. Attention is drawn to René Girard’s mimetic theory, whereby imitation of one another gives rise to rivalries and violent conflicts that are then temporarily solved by scapegoating others. Some artists of Jewish origin included in the Collection addressed their experience of persecution through crucifixion imagery and, thereby, played their part in exposing and subverting this scapegoating mechanism.

Many of these artists were part of a remarkable generation of refugees from Nazi-dominated Europe who contributed artworks that greatly enriched British culture and churches. After the Second World War, there was an almost unprecedented expansion of the number of church buildings containing works of art, as churches were repaired or built with new work installed in them. This was a time of impassioned artistic activity, in which the catalyst for the Church was, to a significant extent, émigré artists, many of whom were Jewish. I explore the contribution made by this group of artists in a related essay called Debt Owed to Jewish Refugee Art which is also available through Ben Uri Online.

Will Hutton, writing in The Guardian in 2015, noted that refugees “are, as migration specialist Ian Goldin characterises them, ‘exceptional people’”. He continued: “Over centuries, as [Goldin] painstakingly details, it has been immigrants and refugees who have been part of the alchemy of any country’s success: they are driven, hungry and talented and add to the pool of entrepreneurs, innovators and risk-takers. The hundreds of thousands today who have trekked across continents and dangerous seas are by any standards unusually driven. They are also, as Angela Merkel says, fellow human beings. To receive them well is not only in our interests, it is fundamental to an idea of what it means to be human.” The history of émigré artists in the twentieth century, and the part of that story I explore in this essay and exhibition, reiterates and demonstrates the continuing relevance and significance of that message.

In relation to the story told in my essay, it is a story in which the Church is at the heart of welcome and hospitality, combined with awareness of the immense contribution that refugees make to the culture and economy of their host countries. Our current lack of appreciation for that story, these artists, and their works, is, perhaps, symptomatic of the place in which our nation’s conversation about immigration is currently stuck. My hope is that this exhibition and essay can play a small part in changing that situation.

View the Exodus & Exile: Migration Themes in Biblical Images exhibition.