The Second Coming

Following on from last year’s rare showing of Dennis Potter’s Son of Man, we return to Carr’s Lane Church for another unconventional screen Messiah. This time Christ arrives in present-day Manchester in the form of Blockbusters employee Steve (Christopher Eccleston), who discovers his divinity outside a pub and then after forty days on Saddleworth Moor commandeers the Man City ground as his pulpit. Though all of this could be played as satire, writer Russell T Davies and his terrific cast handle tricky territory with a warm and thought-provoking approach, combining humour and drama to speculate on the role spirituality plays in the internet age.