The Man Born to Be King

A BBC Radio 4 Drama Collection

By: Dorothy L. Sayers

Narrated by: full cast, Gabriel Woolf, John Westbrook, Norman Shelley, Mary Wimbush, Miriam Margolyes, John Laurie

Dorothy L. Sayers' classic play cycle based on the life and times of Jesus

Dorothy L. Sayers was best known for her mystery novels featuring aristocratic amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. But she was also a poet, playwright and committed Christian, and in The Man Born to Be King she combined art and evangelism to powerful effect, making the story of Christ accessible, relevant and every bit as thrilling as her detective fiction.

Written specially for the BBC Radio, the play cycle caused huge controversy for its depiction of Christ as a character, and its use of contemporary speech instead of Biblical language. However it proved extremely popular with listeners, who wrote in to thank Sayers for making Jesus real to them and reigniting their interest in his remarkable story.

Based on the four Gospels, it includes one story of the Nativity, six plays about Jesus' life and ministry, and five Passion Plays telling of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, Jesus' arrest and trial before Pontius Pilate, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Backed up with a sweeping musical score, these immersive dramas surprise and shock us anew and provide fresh, illuminating insight into 'the greatest story ever told'.

The plays included are Kings in Judea, The King's Herald, A Certain Nobleman, The Heirs to the Kingdom, The Bread of Heaven, The Feast of Tabernacles, The Light and The Life, Royal Progress, The King's Supper, The Princes of This World, King of Sorrows and The King Comes to His Own.

Cast and credits

Written by Dorothy L Sayers

Adapted by/Producer: Raymond Raikes

The Evangelist (John Bar-Zebedee): Gabriel Woolf

Jesus: John Westbrook

Joseph/ Jacob Ben-Issachar: Norman Shelley

Simon Bar-Jonah (Simon Peter): Stephen Jack

Judas Iscariot: Alan Wheatley

Matthew: Nigel Stock

Herod The Great: Robert Eddison

Nicodemus: John Wyse

Ephraim: Denys Blakelock

Shadrach: Malcolm Hayes

Rabbit Solomon: John Gabriel

Phoebe: Caroline Monkhouse

Flavius: Trader Faulkner

Calpurnia: Penelope Lee

Mary Virgin: June Tobin

Mary Magdalen: Mary Wimbush

Martha: Marjorie Westbury

Lazarus: Richard Hurndall

Benjamin Ben-Hadad: Ralph Truman

Joseph, kinsman to Jesus: Haydn Jones

Simeon, kinsman to Jesus: Wilfrid Carter

Baruch the Zealot: Francis de Wolff

Baruch’s Wife: Vivienne Chatterton

Gestas: John Laurie

Dysmas: Russell Napier

Simon of Cyrene: Rodney Dias

Proclus, a Roman Centurion: Trevor Martin

Roman soldier: Bruce Beeby

Roman soldier: Harvey Hall

Joseph of Arimathea: Howieson Culff

Calaphas, High Priest of Israel: Heron Carvic

Salome, mother to James and John: Henzie Raeburn

Mary Cleophas: Molly Rankin

Balthazar, King of Ethiopia: Paul Danqdah

Melchior/ A Zealot: Michael Kilgarriff

Casper: James Dale

Claudia Procula, wife to Pilate: Mary Law

Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judaea: Alec Clunes

Philip: Rolf Lefebvre

Thomas Didymus/ Father: Philip Leaver

Mother: Wynne Clark

Miriam, child: Elizabeth Proud

Isaac, child/a slave boy: Daniel Rose

Hannah: Hester Paton-Brown

James Bar-Zebedee: John Glen

Andrew Bar-Jonah: John Boxer

Hezekiah, secretary/ Roman Soldier: John Baker

Annas, father-in-law to Caiaphas: Edward Atienza

Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judaea: Alec Clunes

Claudia Procula: Mary Law

Captain Elihu: Keith Alexander

Eunice, a Syro-Phoenician: Elizabeth Morgan

Cleophas: Harry Hutchinson

Portress at the High Priest’s House: Miriam Margolyes

Zillah, her daughter: Jo Manning-Wilson

Issacher, servant: Hugh Dickson

Susannah, mother to the Bride groom: Betty Baskcomb

Rebecca, friend to Susannah: Gladys Spencer/ Janet Burnell

Other cast: Ian Frost, Janette Richer, Nan Marriott-Watson, Janette Richer, Peter Marinker, Raf de la Torre, James Thomason, John Forrest, Michael Goldie

First broadcast BBC Home Service 19th, 26th Jan, 2nd, 9th , 16th, 23rd Feb, 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, 28th, 30th March 1975

©2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Outstanding!!

Excellently written, adheres well to the Gospels. Sayers showed great talent. Excellent performance, good actors and good production.

Follows the Gospel of John pretty well

Out of necessity, Dorothy Sayers takes creative liberties with the Gospel account, but on the whole she made a great effort to be faithful to the Biblical account. It's a worthwhile listen, putting the life of Jesus in somewhat more modern vernacular and helping to identify with the emotions of the real people of that time in history.

A beautiful presentation of the Life of Jesus

Very moving! Great dialogue! A whole new approach for me about the life of Jesus.

As it was meant to be

I've read this play cycle many times, but I've always wondered what it would be like to hear it performed as it was meant to be. Imagine my excitement when such a recording appeared on audible! I've never spent a credit on a book more willingly. This recording was made in 1975, which explains some of the special effects (I found the angels in the first play to be basically inaudible), but it holds up extremely well with Ms Sayers' writing behind it. I cried like a baby during the crucifixion. Excellent production all around.

Some parts too loud, some parts too soft

Wonderful portrayal, wonderful translation from the Greek. Wish the background dynamics were not so overwhelming

What CS Lewis listened to during Holy Week!

been looking a long time for this classic performance. Fantastic! will listen to it again and again.

A Beautiful Dramatization of the Life of Jesus

I have always enjoyed the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, but I never knew that Dorothy Sayers wrote a cycle of plays based on the life of Jesus Christ. This riveting dramatization is accurate to Scripture. The language is modernized to be more accessible and, hopefully, to whet the appetites of listeners and inspire them to read the Biblical accounts of Jesus's life in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Sayers imbues her characters with humanity, exploring the fears, inadequacies and ultimate faith of the apostles. I love how Sayers provides interesting scenes and fleshes out seemingly minor characters like the Roman Centurion and Pontius Pilate's wife, Claudia. If you enjoy dramas like The Chosen or Biblical dramatizations of any kind, then this series of radio plays is not to be missed.

The voice acting is superb in this series of plays. I particularly enjoyed John Westbrook's portrayal of Jesus, for he captured Christ's humanity and His divinity simultaneously. Other great acting came from the man who portrayed Pilate, the man who portrayed Matthew, the man who portrayed the High Priest Caiaphas, and the woman who portrayed Mary Magdalene. All of the acting was superior, and I could not find a faulty performance in the large cast.
The Man Born to Be King is a marvelous listening experience. Thoroughly recommended! God bless you all.

Beautiful!

I have loved this book for years. But to read it as a book is a completely different experience than experiencing it as a radio drama which is what it was written to be. I’m so delighted that Audible was able to make this stunning performance available!

Perfect for Lent

My children and I listened during the season of Lent 2024 and we loved it!

I would like a bit less dynamic range

Summary: A series of twelve radio plays that ran on BBC radio from Dec 1941 until Oct 1942. 

Any attempt to portray Jesus artistically has to make artistic and theological choices. Those choices will be debated, but at the same time, if the story of Jesus cannot be shared, then people cannot hear. On the other hand, the natural choices are to make Jesus more understandable to a culture. That is not inherently bad, but those choices to make Jesus understandable will reduce Jesus in ways that make him less of a challenge to the culture. And so there is a catch-22, where to be so concerned about misportraying Jesus means that we keep the story of Jesus hidden, but to not be concerned enough about misportraying Jesus means that we can distort who Jesus is and make him into someone he was not.

I know this point may be a bit controversial. Still, generally, the more culturally and socially dominant an artist is, the more likely the distortions will accommodate Jesus to culture, which will tend to draw Jesus to bless hierarchy and culture. While generally, those that are less culturally or socially dominant will tend to portray Jesus in a way that rebukes culture. This is not a hard and fast rule but a tendency. In reality, no one is whole dominant or oppressed. Sayers was a woman in a sexist society that was very interested in maintaining class structures. It was unknown to most during her life, but after her death, it was revealed that she had a child out of wedlock, who was raised as her nephew. So she also had an acquaintance with social shame. She also was part of a culture and country that was militarily powerful, where racial hierarchy was practiced, and which thought of itself as a powerful world-leading country. There are places where I think that Sayers had blind spots and distorted Jesus and places where I think she did a good job showing a facet of Jesus that people may have missed.

For context to know how I approached the radio dramas, I read every word of this annotated printed edition (I recieved a digital copy of the book from the publisher for review). And I listened to all the radio plays from a copy I purchased from Audible, originally recorded in 1975. The audio and this print edition are not exactly the, but the differences are fairly minor. One of the common annotation points is to note some of the changes from the earlier edition of the play to the original broadcast version, but it does not compare to later versions.

The annotation includes introductions to each play by the editor, the cast of the original 1940s radio play, and the original notes that Sayers wrote to the director and performers. When the plays were first published, Sayers wrote an introduction and a second introduction by the BBC producer. And the annotation itself has an introduction. By the time I had read all three introductions, I was bored with the introductions, and I was impatient to start the play.

Overall I think the plays are worth listening to and/or reading. The distance in culture is enough that annotations are helpful for added context, but most things are fairly clear. But the culture is different enough that, in some ways, it may be better to listen to or read these plays than something closer to our current culture like the TV series The Chosen. About halfway through reading/listening, I realized that the distance between today and the original broadcast is just a bit longer than the distance between the original broadcast and the end of the American Civil War. In one of the notes to the cast and director, Sayers uses the N-word. The annotation discusses it a bit, and this edition doesn't print out the word, but it does point out cultural biases within the plays.

I do not want to do a simple list of positives and negatives, but I think there are two main negatives to the presentation and one main positive that I want to note. The first area of concern is how Jesus is portrayed. Jesus is voiced by an actor that sounds like a standard BBC voice. Sayers says in her comments that she wants a variety of regional accents in the different disciples. Her point that it is easier to distinguish various clear accents or voices is true. And she also says that she wants it clear that the disciples and Jesus were not all upper-class aristocrats. I think that, like many children's bibles that have started using a variety of skin tones, Jesus tends to be lighter-skinned than others on the page. So Jesus here is made a bit "better" than the regional accents of many of the other disciples. Also, Jesus is mentioned as being blond several times in the text. Sayers knows that Jesus was not blond in reality, but she wanted to distinguish him (again, like her voice comments.) But in a society where white racial superiority exists, making Jesus blond doesn't simply make him identifiable to British people. Still, it makes him part of their caste in opposition to people of other ethnicities, races, and castes.

Jesus is portrayed as human in many cases. But there are places where I think the British objections to emotion were used to make Jesus less human. For example, there are no tears when Jesus comes to Mary and Martha after Lazurus' death. This is one of the few places where Sayers deviates from scripture. There are some other examples as well, but at the same time, so many more places, Jesus is portrayed well as a human.

This leads me to where what I liked most about the plays, the background motivations. This is most easily seen in the portrayal of Judas. Sayers' version of Judas is smart, self-assured, and a serious follower of God and Jesus. But in some ways, he thinks that he is more capable than Jesus. There are a few lines where Judas says (my paraphrase) if only Jesus had followed my directions, he would not be in this political mess. There is also good background that makes Caiphas, Pilate, and other characters make sense. For Peter, who cut the ear of one of the guards that were arresting Jesus, it was that guard that first confronts Peter in the courtyard where Peter denies Jesus.

With any artistic work, there are interpretative decisions that have to be made. And I obviously do not agree with all of the ones Sayers made here. But I think work like this should be taken seriously as a theological work, not just an artistic one.

I do want to make a comment about the actual audio. This is a recording from the 1970s and is pretty good. But I would like it to have been remastered to reduce some of the audio range. I tend to listen to audiobooks as I walk my dog. And I was constantly adjusting the volume up or down on this one because the volume range was too wide. There were places where the audio was not as clear as I would have liked, and reading really helped. There were other places where the emotion of the voices really mattered to my understanding, and I am not sure that the text, apart from the narration, would have given me the whole story.