I know that Harri and I did (not together) but did anyone else watch this.

Excellent TV with something for everyone to think about theists of Jewish and Christian traditions, atheists and, possibly, anti-Semites as well.

I hope that no-one else did watch it as I want to bring up the wasp debate at some stage on here. (What is it with wasps and religious debate?)

The major feeling for me, apart from the usual incredulousness at how the Holocaust was carried out, was a feeling of impending fear that Anthony Sher had been quiet, too quiet, throught the first 75 minutes and, sure enough, he stole the show at the end. I was worried that if he had to wait a minute longe, his head would explode

QUOTE:
What is it with wasps and religious debate

It's hard to debate when everyone hates you. Bees on the other hand are very eloquent on the subject.

I saw this and thought it was fantstic apart from the clunking last line as the old man got on the bus. Frank Cotterall Boyce is a very good writer isn't he? A great idea for a play and it was one of the best Holocaust related plays/films I've seen in a long time.

I'm glad someone's mentioned this - I thought it was thought-provoking, well-casted and generally superb.

Good point, Fausto. To be honest, I could have lived without all the modern bits.

It was a very affecting piece of work, and the best example of a real old-fasioned "play for television" that I can remember in years.

Slightly worrying that there were at least two actors in this that are also in the 'Mamma Mia' movie, is there an ABBA/Auschwitz crossover on the cards?

Wingco to thread.

Missed this I'm afraid - but perhaps Wyatt alludes to the dubious parentage of one of the Abba females?

Yeah, which I heard about from you.

This was one of the best dramas I've seen this year. Moreover, its listing of the arguments for and against faith in a benevolent interventionist god were extremely well presented: despite the writer being Catholic the anti won out in the end, and they were put forward more eruditely than Richard Dawkins ever does on TV, but the to and fro was gripping. (And, indeed, dramatic, thus overcoming the piece's essential staginess and wordiness.)

It'll be on iPlayer until 9pm Wednesday. I'd be interested to hear what OTF's regular God debaters think. (Wyatt: yer man Frank Cottrell Boyce wrote it.)

Well, just saw this on iPlayer and can only add to the general mood of hearty endorsement.It's handled almost perfectly by Boyce, and with vigorous audacity as well as delicacy. One could cavil about the very last line - it feels at once clunky and lightweight - but that's to be hypercritical. Everyone should see this.


***Spoiler alert***

It's great that Anthony Sher is there because it feels like everyone is standing up to do their dramatic "solos" like jazz players and you know Sher is going to deliver the knockout blow at the end. However, it is, I think, finely counterbalanced by the judge, who has a word in the shell-like of the defending lawyer, explaining his own astonishing circumstances and urging the defending orthodox Jew, "don't let them take your God." That's as strong an argument for God as is allowable, I think - as being so central to Jewish identity as being essential for any sense of survival as a people.