On Easter weekend in 2011, a 72-hour non-stop theatrical performance took place across Michael Sheen’s hometown of Port Talbot, Wales. Michael played The Teacher in a play inspired by the passion of Christ, where the focus is on the town itself and its people. The play was based on a novel by Owen Sheers, who wrote the script, and was co-directed by Michael Sheen and Bill Mitchell. Michael was also creative director of the play, which he worked on for several years before the one-off performance.
“The original story in the bible is a series of events that are recounted by a number of people, and that’s what all the gospels are, there are the official gospels and the apocryphal gospels, there’s all these different versions of the story. So I like the idea that maybe our story could work like that as well […] there was every single person who had a mobile phone there over the three days, of which there were a lot, filming everything, they’ve all got their own gospels”
Michael Sheen in The Guardian
A YouTube playlist of the audience’s videos of parts of The Passion of Port Talbot (please let me know if you find more!).