Over a year ago, the word went out that the Theatre Royal Bath was preparing to stage the ‘un-stageable’: the spectacular, Roman-religious awards-magnet ‘Ben Hur’, chariot race and all. The cast and crew? That’ll be a bunch of have-a-go local amateurs, then. Joe Spurgeon signed up.

“Imagine you’re having sex from your belly! Shout it! Louder! In an Ee-talian accent! Do it a-now-a!” From the edge of what, it turns out, is a deceptively large stage in the main house of Bath’s majestic Theatre Royal, without my glasses, I can just about make out the gleaming head of our manically arm-waving director Lee Lyford, skipping along the isles of ‘the gods’, seemingly 100 foot up and another county away, in the upper reaches of the auditorium. I can definitely hear him. We’re here with less than a month to go before we unleash our version of Lew Wallace’s muscular, 19th-century biblical epic on the public. And today, with some difficulty, we’re learning to ‘project’.

It’s merely the latest chapter in the constantly surprising, challenging, frustrating and regularly thrilling book of ‘Ben Hur’, the pages of which we – as an amateur cast of 130, aged 8-80 – have been turning since mid-winter last year. It’s been quite a journey: from half-heartedly accepting the theatre’s invite to toddle along to a workshop back in December (“A once in a lifetime opportunity to do something incredible” rang the call) to, suddenly, ten months on, finding myself humming Aramaic choir song in the shower and daydreaming about (literally) bloody chariot races whilst waiting at a bus stop in Bristol.

It all started because of an immense gesture made by someone whom I’ll never meet, but whose name I shall never forget. Margot Boyd, best known for playing Marjorie Antrobus in the long-running rural Radio 4 soap ‘The Archers’, passed away in 2008, bequeathing a hefty chunk of cash to the theatre in her will.

“The theatre was contacted by the trustees of Margot Boyd’s estate and were told that she’d wanted to give some money so that the people of Bath could have a go at something they’d never done before and find ways of falling in love with theatre,” remembers Jill Bennett, the project’s co-producer. “We decided to launch the whole programme with a bang, through a large community production. We knew who was going to direct it, who was going to co-produce it, who was going to write and adapt it and roughly when it was going to happen, but we didn’t know what it was going to be. We thought about shows that could accommodate a large amount of people… ‘Decameron’… ‘One Thousand and One Nights’… ‘Canterbury Tales’… then Hattie [Naylor – ‘Ben Hur’’s modern-day scriptwriter] said she’d always wanted to adapt ‘Ben Hur’. We said it was ridiculous, we couldn’t possibly do that… and then after about half a minute, we thought ‘why not?’ Just because it’s never been done before, doesn’t mean we can’t do it.”

Director Lee Lyford was there too: “We had a longlist of titles… ‘Spartacus’ got very close, and I’ve always wanted to do ‘War of the Worlds’, but you can’t get the rights. Originally, ‘Ben Hur’ just seemed… preposterous. It felt kitsch; my reference point was the film and it just made me laugh every time I thought about it; it seemed a silly thing to attempt. But when I went back and watched the film again, I realised it wasn’t that at all, it was something far more sensitive and intelligent and… human.”

Those subtler nuances in ‘Ben Hur’ derive from the fractious lifelong relationship between childhood chums Judah and Messala, both latterly seduced, in their own ways, by family, faith and power. The ensuing black-and-white moralising and redemption over revenge allegory mightn’t be to everyone’s tastes, but the film, which clocks in at a bum-numbing 212 minutes, with its sinewy star Charlton Heston mean-eyed and macho from the off, is bloated with serious spectacle. Reminiscent of a time when a CGI-free Hollywood took itself very seriously, huge, ensemble scenes are enacted at lavish expense: the eerie zombified hinterland of a leper colony; the torturous traipse of travellers forced to register for a Roman census and the crucifixion of Christ. Then, of course, there’s the famous chariot race, when Judah and Messala finally go toe-to-toe.

“We thought ‘Ben Hur’ would get people asking ‘how on earth are they going to do that? I’m not going to miss my chance to find out!’” says Jill. “It is one of my favourite memories,” adds Lee, “when we were workshopping the chariot race early on – just working on the idea of it – and we realised that yes, it could actually work. It was a huge relief, it felt like it was going to be a bloody nightmare to do, but it was going to work!” 

It was a somewhat different story back in January when, on a frosty fresh morning, under a merry mist of hot breath, a procession of people (my girlfriend and I amongst them) shuffled into a pristinely refurbished community hall in Larkhall. Inside, utter chaos. Women arguing, kids running wild, bored teenagers tapping iPhones, one world-weary man despondently shaking his head, another slowly unpacking his picnic for one. And it’s loud. Above the din, a jocular rosy-cheeked chap (assistant director Shane Morgan, it turns out) is calling for calm. Amazingly, he seems to be enjoying himself. More impressively still, with career reputations dangling dangerously on the line, he and his team are going to draw a three-figure cast from this rowdy crew of unruly strangers – students, nurses, teachers, nannies, consultants: amateurs all – to not only perform at the Theatre Royal, but to do so under a £16 ticket tag.

Incredibly, what in fact transpires over the next few months is that somehow, from somewhere, a steady stream of gently nurtured talent springs forth. Up pops a dead-eyed, tuba-voiced Messala; Judah’s mum Miriam emerges, fiercely matriarchal; Isra – a temptress – glamorous, cruel, flawed; Messala’s muse, Tiraz, materialises, exotic, playful, naïve, riffing off her playmate – a more combative, spirited, spiritual Zina. Then there’s Judah himself, of course, earnest, principled, loyal; Matt the student, to his mum.

Naturally, the ruthless realities of the casting process knocks a few people out of kilter (not everyone can be Prince Judah, after all), and a few feel the pain and part company, though it soon becomes clear the headliners aren’t the only ones getting a piece of the pie. There are alliances forged, a new baby born, even a marriage – and our seething mass of families, boyfriends, girlfriend, friends – many now sporting mustard yellow ‘I’m in Ben Hur’ sweatshirts – solidifies. Over the next few months, we make giant human sculpture, form scratch choirs, re-learn to breathe, sing, shout and move; we build an ocean, a galley ship, a coliseum, and all under the ever-watching lens of a BBC documentary film crew (see panel) with soon-to-visit BBC lifer Alan Yentob standing by. We meet costume designers (costume designers!), an impish jack-in-the-box of a musical director and a mad scientist-a-like Belfast composer called Conor. Some of us even learn to fight. Truly, we are the privileged many.

“This isn’t just another play, oh no,” says Lee, back in the present. “This is the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced because of the variables involved. I’ve done big shows before, but often with people – like the [Theatre Royal’s] Youth Theatre – that I’d known for years, with whom I’d developed a shorthand for working. With ‘Ben Hur’, we’ve had to learn as we’ve gone along, and it’s amazing what people do now – there’s a much better understanding of what’s required.

“There’s a huge difference compared to working with professionals. It’s frustrating, but completely understandable. Everyone’s really busy and that’s the deal you go into with something like this. We might have been a little bit naïve about it, but you have to assume everyone will give up everything and they will be there… otherwise there’s no point even starting. Having said that, I am really, truly astounded at people’s commitment and particularly their courage. The thing that has always amazed me is that every time I’ve asked the cast to try something, they’ve always tried it – not one person has bottled it or backed out. I didn’t expect that.”

“The challenges, you’d think, would be getting people to be able to act, but that’s not the case at all,” adds Jill. “But this whole project has been unique. To do something on this scale in the main house... It’s the most exciting project I’ve ever worked on, and hopefully, it’ll be career-making for all of us. I think it’ll be astonishing. The only thing that will disappoint me is if people miss the chance to see it, because I know they’ll get that hair on the back of their neck feeling. People will be talking about it forever afterwards.”

“I hope audiences are moved, thrilled and wowed,” says Lee. “I hope they think, too. It isn’t purely spectacle. There’s a story that transports people too.”

Back on stage at the Theatre Royal, we’re still bellowing at each other like a mob of demented Joe Dolces. Suddenly, the imposing old theatre seems like a place of fun again. We file off-stage. A final glance from this most alien of vantage points. It’s quite something to behold, is an empty 800-capacity theatre; a giant, gilded anachronism whose ancient walls gently throb with the fragments of forgotten stories of yore. The bowed sweep of the foliated balconies, the painted proscenium arch, the fuzzy-thick red carpets, all suffused in warm light under the watchful glare of that lustrous chandelier… I don’t want to forget this. I won’t. Ms Boyd wanted to help people fall in love with the theatre in the same way she had. Whatever happens on that stage come curtain-up, as well as the skittish nerves and the whirl of it all, our collective hearts will be thumping out a full-blooded thank you too. Mission accomplished, Margot.

BEN HUR RAN FROM FRI 29-SUN 31 OCT AT THE THEATRE ROYAL BATH.
 

Copyright Joe Spurgeon 2010

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