It all began with a Saturday morning visit to an exhibition at the National Gallery four years ago. Afterwards, businessman Peter Hutley and his wife, Ann, were walking across Trafalgar Square towards church of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields. "Suddenly, a concept me struck me," he recalls. "Trafalgar Square would have been a marvellous place to stage an enthusiasm play."
Many of us sometimes have similarly madcap ideas, but not many possess the courage and self-belief some thing on them. International property developer Hutley, though, is one of those rare individuals blessed with both vision along with the ability to deliver on it. Tomorrow, Good Friday, for the third year in a row, he and his awesome Wintershall Players - a troupe of 100 keen amateurs, included in this lawyers, accountants and farmers plus a couple of his children, six of his grandchildren and various horses - will be staging two open-air recreations of Jesus's trial, death and resurrection inside the natural arena that is Trafalgar Square. There isn't any stage and actors walk freely over the standing audience.
Last year about 20,000 people resulted in, but Hutley is hoping to twice the figure this time round. It's some undertaking - physically, financially (estimated cost around L80,000) and emotionally, especially since he is 85 years old (before he comes clean, I'd have put him nearer 70). His secret? "Oh, I merely don't think about age," he says with a dismissive smile. "I've still got so much to do."
Likewise, he pooh-poohs the logistical challenge of transporting props, cast, costumes and technology towards the heart of a busy city. A few crosses of Calvary will be erected under Nelson's Column. "That's my offer," he says. "I've been putting up buildings all around the world for 50 years." On the wall is a photograph of the Sydney skyline. He points, just to the right of the Opera House, with a glass and steel tower. "That's one among mine."
We are in the morning room of Wintershall House, his home within the last 40 years, a much-extended 13th-century feudal hall, section of a 1,000 acre estate, near Guildford, that spreads over the North Downs. At Wintershall, in tandem regarding his business career, Hutley has in the past 22 years been fine-tuning his talent for staging open-air theatre. It began when purchasing an old barn behind the main house in 1989. "My son said, 'We should do a nativity play in here'." Characteristically, his can-do father immediately rose for the challenge and now it is an annual event, with bonfires burning about the hillside and sheep in the fields.
Still unhappy, in 1998, Hutley, a become Catholicism, took to heart the message of Pope John Paul II regarding the forthcoming millennium and the have to explore its true significance. He thought we would stage an annual open-air promenade performance, Life of Christ, in the grounds. Later, he gives me a whistle-stop tour in his 4?x?4 of the several locations that double as the Via Dolorosa, the ocean of Galilee and Jerusalem.
As well as using his land, the Wintershall Players may also be funded by Hutley. Even though the week-long summer run of Life of Christ brings in paying audiences of approximately 3,000, there is always a shortfall to make up. In Trafalgar Square, though, the shows are free. He may have deep pockets, so how does he manage to ensure that it stays all afloat? "This year, I've been fortunate. A group of very nice everyone has contributed towards the costs from the Passion of Jesus." He doesn't name them. "And we've received L10,000 from the Archbishop of Westminster's fund." Essentially the most Rev Vincent Nichols will attend tomorrow's noon performance in Trafalgar Square, whilst the Anglican Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, is going to be at the 3.15pm event.
But, money aside, possibly the most extraordinary thing about Hutley is his conviction about broadcasting his beliefs, at any given time when many Christians (including church leaders) prefer to hide their lights within a bushel for fear of their faith being attacked in such secular and sceptical times. "But that's precisely it," he says, more animated than ever. "I desire to illustrate that Christianity is not dying, as we so often hear, that it is alive and active. Where there couldn't be a better place in the entire country to show that compared to Trafalgar Square."
To illustrate his point, he makes a sheaf of letters from anyone who has been in the crowd in past years. "At last, the liberty to speak out for Christianity publicly." one begins. "A great act of witness," reads another. "It made Easter something more than Easter eggs." And "It would have been a blessing to have been able to advance among the crowd, all of whom were attentive, respectful and polite. One could almost hear a pin drop once we concluded with the Our Father."
Do they get any hostile reactions? "Not yet," he replies, "though we're told that because this is Olympic year we will need to increase the number of security guards from 15 to 25." The logic escapes me. And Hutley, too, to judge by the look on his face, though he admits that he is grateful for the support he's got been given by both the Greater London Authority and Westminster City Council in employing Trafalgar Square.
His own upbringing was, he says, broadly Christian, but he's not thinking about denominational labels. "In 1944, when I joined the Army, my sergeant said I'd to put something in the box for religion, and said I was Church of England." It was only after he had started staging the nativity plays at Wintershall which he found himself challenged to deepen his commitment.
Encouraged by his family, in 1994 Hutley travelled to Medjugorje, the small town in Bosnia-Hercegovina where the Virgin Mary is reported to have been appearing since 1981.
The apparitions haven't yet received the imprimatur of the Vatican, but Hutley was sufficiently transferred to become a Catholic the following year. He has returned there over 20 times and remains towards the Franciscan priests who run the parish in Medjugorje. Ever practical, she has expressed his commitment to the shrine by sorting its town planning issues, which became more pressing as visitor numbers grew.
Evangelising through drama, though, is really a challenge of quite a different order in secular Britain. Back in the day common in, for example, the medieval mystery plays, however, these are now more usually seen as tourist attractions or period pieces, as opposed to a serious effort to convey the contemporary relevance from the Christian message.
"They still work, though," Hutley insists. "I believe these plays have an indelible affect people, that they carry faraway from them something that they will remember, in addition than if they came into a church service. It is all to do with it being live and alive."
So that you can broaden that impact even more, there was a first-ever preview performance of The Passion of Jesus in the central Westminster hall yesterday on an invited audience of Christians in politics.
The scripts that this amateur company uses - just like the props, costumes and funding - all are derived from Hutley. Was he a frustrated writer in his business career? "I used to have an insurance business, so I was writing policies there," he jokes. He stays in keeping with the Bible as much as possible, according to him, but credits a family friend, the poet Morag Morris, along with the actors and directors he's worked with, for what ends up on stage. The corporation features only one professional actor - James Burke-Dunsmore, who plays Jesus. Everyone else has to fit rehearsing and performing around working lives - including Hutley's sons, Nicholas, who's the narrator, and Edward, who plays Pontius Pilate.
This family affair is, though, considerably more than a hobby, something to fill their free time between building office blocks and handling the organic farm at Wintershall. Though he wears it lightly, Hutley is extremely much the modern missionary. "It is so important," he states, "that faith is not despised in our world, that we are not all damaged by not enough faith."
Author Resource:
When you come in Bosnia and Hercegovina, you will introduce the most beautiful place such as Medjugorje .
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