A film by Dave McKean
The Gospel of Us
Michael Sheen is the Teacher. Written by Owen Sheers. Filmed live, over three days, in the streets of Port Talbot.
Easter 2011
About the film
Easter in Port Talbot. A town in thrall to a faceless corporation. On the beach, a softly spoken man who vanished forty days ago steps in to stop a catastrophe, with no memory of who he is.
The Gospel of Us is Dave McKean’s film of The Passion, the play Michael Sheen, National Theatre Wales and WildWorks staged across his home town. More than a thousand local people performed it. The beach, the clubs and the seafront were the set. McKean cut the live footage, the audience’s own phone footage and new scenes into a film somewhere between drama, document and collage.
“a masterclass in imaginative film editing and the product of an endlessly inventive esoteric mind”
Before the film, the play
Seventy-two hours in Port Talbot
From Good Friday to Easter Sunday 2011 a softly spoken man with no memory appeared on the beach at Aberavon, and the town followed him. Some scenes were scheduled. Most of the story simply kept happening, all over town.
Hours of The Passion, Good Friday to Easter Sunday, 2011
- Aberavon beach Where it began, on the Friday
- The Seaside Social Club The Last Supper
- Civic Square The Trial
- Station Road The Procession
- Aberavon seafront The Cross
“…an astonishing creation, a piece of street theatre of transcendental power.”
“A town remembering itself through a story.”
Making it
“my own very personal take on what happened, it is my ‘gospel’.”
Dave McKean, Unseen Films, 26 October 2012
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Fourteen hours into two
McKean edited “fourteen solid hours of drama” into a film of about two hours, writing short linking scenes, an animated story for the Stranger and moments alone with the Teacher, shot with Sheen at the end of each day.
Unseen Films, 2012 (opens in a new tab) -
Cameras in the crowd
So as not to spoil the play for its audience, McKean’s crews agreed to shoot from concealed positions. Much of his editing time went on cutting around press photographers who had no such scruples.
Eye magazine, 30 October 2013 (opens in a new tab) -
The audience’s footage
“I sent a message out on Twitter for anyone that was there with their phones or handy-cams or whatever, and wouldn’t mind donating them to the show.”
Dave McKean to Crosslight, 2013 (opens in a new tab) -
A thirteenth disciple
On the last night the water screen computers crashed, some of the lights failed and the sound would not work. McKean’s sound recordist was “drafted in as a strange pink shirted, cowboy hatted 13th disciple” to hold a microphone to Sheen so the dialogue could be heard and recorded.
Unseen Films, 2012 (opens in a new tab)
The company
Michael Sheen
The Gospel of Us
Nigel Barrett, Hywel Simons, Di Botcher, David Rees Talbot, Matthew Aubrey, John-Paul Macleod, Darren Lawrence, Kyle Rees, Francine Morgan
- Music by
- Dave McKean and Ashley Slater
- Edited by
- Dave McKean and Jason Bevan
- Director of photography
- Anthony Sutcliffe
- Executive producers
- Keith Potter · Francis Hellyer · Lucy Davies
- Co-producer
- National Theatre Wales
- Production company
- Rondo Media
- Produced by
- Eryl Huw Phillips
- Written by
- Owen Sheers
- Directed by
- Dave McKean
Based on The Passion, created in Port Talbot by National Theatre Wales and WildWorks, Easter 2011
The notices
Press and awards-
“a bold attempt to turn it into something more cinematic”
The Guardian Phelim O’Neill -
“Sheen is clearly in a league of his own”
Cine-Vue Patrick Gamble -
“There is a raw, primitive response to Christ in this film, despite all its community theatre window-dressing.”
Financial Times Antonia Quirke, 4 stars -
“Though the film resolves little, it illuminates a lot.”
The Wee Review Rory Edgington
Watch it
On disc, and on the other side of the world
The UK DVD from Soda Pictures and the director’s own shop, and streaming in Australia and New Zealand. Every link checked 24 October 2026.
All the details