A film by Dave McKean
The Gospel of Us
Michael Sheen is the Teacher. Written by Owen Sheers.
Filmed over three days at Easter in Port Talbot.
BAFTA Cymru 2013 Best Actor Michael Sheen
BAFTA Cymru 2013 Best Sound Winner
Easter, Port Talbot
About the film
Easter in Port Talbot. A town in thrall to a faceless corporation. On the beach, a softly spoken man who vanished forty days ago steps in to stop a catastrophe, with no memory of who he is.
The Gospel of Us is Dave McKean’s film of The Passion, the play that Michael Sheen, National Theatre Wales and WildWorks staged across his home town over Easter 2011. Owen Sheers wrote it. More than a thousand local people performed in it, thousands more watched it, and the town itself was the set: the beach, the clubs, the housing estates, the seafront.
McKean wove the live footage, much of it shot from inside the crowd, together with the audience’s own phone footage and new scenes, into a feature that sits somewhere between drama, document and collage. It premiered at the Apollo Cinema in Port Talbot on Easter Sunday 2012, a year after the play.
“a masterclass in imaginative film editing and the product of an endlessly inventive esoteric mind”
Before the film, the play
Seventy-two hours in Port Talbot
From Good Friday to Easter Sunday 2011, a softly spoken stranger with no memory appeared on the beach at Aberavon, and the whole town followed him. The Passion ran day and night across Port Talbot, some of it scheduled, much of it not.
- Aberavon beach Where it began, on the Friday
- The Seaside Social Club The Last Supper
- Civic Square The Trial
- Station Road The Procession
- Aberavon seafront The Cross
“…like watching a town discovering its voice through a shared act of creation.”
“A town remembering itself through a story.”
The credits
Michael Sheen
The Gospel of Us
Nigel Barrett · Hywel Simons · Di Botcher · David Rees Talbot · Matthew Aubrey · John-Paul Macleod · Darren Lawrence · Kyle Rees · Francine Morgan
- Music by
- Dave McKean and Ashley Slater
- Edited by
- Dave McKean and Jason Bevan
- Director of photography
- Anthony Sutcliffe
- Executive producers
- Keith Potter · Francis Hellyer · Lucy Davies
- Co-producer
- National Theatre Wales
- Production company
- Rondo Media
- Produced by
- Eryl Huw Phillips
- Written by
- Owen Sheers
- Directed by
- Dave McKean
Based on The Passion, created in Port Talbot by National Theatre Wales and WildWorks, Easter 2011
What the critics wrote
Press and awards-
“At its heart is a very human story.”
The Arts Desk Dylan Moore -
“a bold attempt to turn it into something more cinematic”
The Guardian Phelim O’Neill -
“Sheen is clearly in a league of his own”
Cine-Vue Patrick Gamble -
“Though the film resolves little, it illuminates a lot.”
The Wee Review Rory Edgington
Watch it
Where to find the film today
The UK DVD from Soda Pictures, the director’s own shop, and streaming in Australia and New Zealand. Every link checked 24 October 2026.
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