The Thorn

'The Thorn' is the screen version of a touring stage show that has been retelling the Gospel across America for more than 25 years, to over 1.5 million people. It isn't a conventional play or musical: the story is carried by dance, martial arts and aerial acrobatics, with smoke, pyrotechnics and a huge video screen behind the performers. John and Sarah Bolin first put it on in 1996, when they were youth pastors at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, for teenagers who wanted nothing to do with church.

The film wraps the show in a new story. On the island of Patmos, Asher, a young slave on the run after stealing from his master, stumbles into the cave where the apostle John lives in exile, an old man now and the last of Jesus' disciples still alive. John tells the boy the story he lived through, and every so often the film cuts back to the two of them in the cave.

What follows is the stage production itself. It opens with Creation, Lucifer's fall and the Garden of Eden, then spends most of its time with Jesus, from the first miracles to Holy Week. Jesus has no lines; John does the talking, with the odd joke along the way. Roman soldiers fight with swords, acrobats spin on long lengths of fabric, a paralysed man celebrates his healing with a burst of breakdancing, and Gethsemane turns into a sword fight between angels and demons.

Rob Stennett and Andrew Harmon directed the film, which mixes a recording of the show with the new scenes on Patmos. Jim Miles plays John, Carter Rockwood is Asher and Adam Bond is Jesus. Bolin says people who never go to church tend to spot traces of 'The Passion of the Christ', Cirque du Soleil and 'Jesus Christ Superstar' in it, while some churchgoers complain that the message gets lost amid all the circus.

Fathom Events took it to US cinemas as a special event over two nights, 6 and 7 March 2023, added more dates that month and brought it back for Easter, when it played in more than 800 cinemas. Christian outlets loved it. Others felt the camera kept viewers at arm's length, and that the show's real power lies in being surrounded by the dancers in a theatre.

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