THE EASTER STORY
by Neil Pugmire

Performed: Easter 2003, Commercial Road and Cascades shopping centre, Portsmouth.

Churches Together in Central Portsmouth commissioned Top Cat to perform the Easter story - from Palm Sunday through to Good Friday - in the main shopping centre in Portsmouth. It started with a Palm Sunday-style procession from the Roman Catholic cathedral, along Commercial Road and into the Cascades shopping centre. More than 100 participants dressed themselves in Biblical-style clothes to follow three giant puppets of Jesus and two of his disciples.

Once inside the centre, the action turned towards illustrating what happened on Good Friday, with a piece based on the story of Simon of Cyrene - the man who was asked to carry Jesus’ cross. Then we explored what happened on Easter Sunday, with a sketch based around two disciples walking to Emmaus. We used the three giant puppets - which were originally made for a performance to 5,000 people for the 75th anniversary of Portsmouth’s Anglican diocese - once again.

Top Cat was commissioned to do something similar for Easter 2005 , and worked with students at St Luke’s School to devise a piece based around samba drumming. Find out what happened here.