John Wolfson’s The Inn at Lydda is based on an incident recorded in The Death of Pilate which can be found in the New Testament Apocrypha.
The mortally ill Emperor Tiberius (Stephen Boxer) in Rome hears about a man who is able to heal the sick and decides to journey to Judea and be healed by him, only to find he has arrived too late. The man had been crucified three days earlier. Wolfson imagines a meeting between the risen Christ (Samuel Collings) and the Emperor. Will Christ heal a mass murderer?
I presumed the play was going to be serious and was much surprised to find it was so trivial and banal. 32 years on the Magi are still alive and haven’t aged. The trio (headed by Joseph Marcell) would not be out of place in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Similarly, Tiberius’s astrologer (David Cardy) is a perfect role for Frankie Howerd in his Up Pompeii mode.
John, the apostle, who witnesses the meeting is inspired to write the Book of Revelation. But it is Caligula (Philip Cumbus) who has the most arresting speech when he prophesies that the carnage created in the next two thousand years by Christians will be far greater than anything done by the Roman Empire.