May 22, 2003
Messiah from Manchester
Russell T. Davies' best-known scripts have come from personal experience. A young gay man from Manchester, Davies created an international sensation with Queer As Folk, an unflinching series about young gay men from Manchester (later adapted as a U.S. series about young gay men from Pittsburgh). When one of Davies' gay friends fell in love with a straight woman and was ostracized in the gay community for his "betrayal" the screenwriter wrote the touching Bob and Rose, about a young gay man Manchester man who, for reasons he can't even fathom, falls for a straight woman.
So when you learn that Davies' latest miniseries, a four-hour drama eight years in the making, is about the second coming of the Messiah -- in Manchester, natch -- you might assume Davies is a religious man.
He is, in fact, a proud atheist, as he recently told a British reporter, but that doesn't mean that Second Coming, which makes its North American debut on Showcase, Saturday and Sunday at 10 p.m., is satiric or disparaging. [note: The Showcase.ca site's schedule at
Christopher Eccleston, the intense Manchester-born actor, stars as Steve Baxter, a thirtysomething nebbish who works in a video store and is still a virgin, largely because he's so awkward around the opposite sex.
The one woman he feels comfortable around is Judith (Lesley Sharp of "Bob and Rose"), a longtime mate. But on the very night that Steve realizes they may be more than chums, he is given a much bigger revelation.
He disappears for 40 days, and is found in the hinterland, half-starved and raving. He is the son of God, he proclaims, and is generally dismissed as a nutter, though apparently not by the Catholic church. A seemingly apocryphal scripture known only to Rome had foretold of Christ's return at a time and location approximating those of Steve's wild assertions. The cardinals would like a word with Steve.
Steve's friends have different reactions to his new incarnation, but Judith is the only one who is put out. She finds the whole notion of heaven, hell and redemption to be repugnant, and sees Steve's craziness as an affront. Not even when he gathers a crowd to a football stadium and turns night to day, is she willing to believe in his deity.
Not that Steven makes it any easier to believe. He is more human than divine in most things, and has only a fractured idea of his mission on earth. What he is certain about, however is that mankind has only five days to write a third scripture to stand along with the Old and New Testaments. If it is not complete in the allotted time, then judgment will come.
The news sends the world into a frenzy, much to the delight of certain people whose alliances are not with Steve, ordinary folks who show a satanic streak when their guard is down. Steve is inundated with scriptural submissions, hate mail and insane rumblings, and has no idea how to consider them all, or even what he's looking for. But he gathers a ragtag crew of disciples around him, including the still doubting Judith, and confronts his own erratic faith. In a mesmerizing denouement, he faces a sacrifice greater than even Christ's.
As a Stephen King-style fantasy, "Second Coming" leaves something to be desired; it is not sufficiently tethered to reality. There is no allowance for the certain backlash of other religions if the basic tenets of Christianity were suddenly proclaimed to be no longer a question of faith but fact.
But the film provides an interesting take on what might happen when people who only go through the motions of religion abruptly learn that it's all true. Some searing performances make up for the story's occasional credibility plays.