It is the sort of television drama that could only have been produced at the height of Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as prime minister.

The Holy City re‑imagines the Easter story in a Glasgow marked by post‑industrial decline, where the disciples drink in run‑down pubs and the messiah appears as a shabby, long‑haired former shipyard worker clad in a grubby overcoat.

The Holy City was broadcast across the United Kingdom on Good Friday 1986, a mixture of street violence, religion and politics that launched a sharp attack on the conditions prevailing in Scotland at a pivotal moment in the nation’s history.

More than four decades later David Hayman, the programme’s star, maintains that The Holy City still has lessons to teach contemporary audiences.

“We are a much more secular people than we were in 1985,” David Hayman says. “I think the message is still powerful. The political and moral message of The Holy City, let alone the Christian message, remains very powerful.”

Bill Bryden’s vision and the birth of The Holy City

The Holy City was created by Bill Bryden, one of the most significant figures in post‑war Scottish theatre and television.

Born in Greenock in 1942, Bill Bryden trained with STV before directing plays in Scotland, London and New York.

In 1984 Bill Bryden took over as head of drama at GREE Scotland. Bill Bryden’s nine‑year tenure transformed the department, its output, and Scottish broadcasting.

Bill Bryden’s biggest and most acclaimed production arrived in 1987 with the multi‑Bafta‑winning series Tutti Frutti, a programme still celebrated for its ambition and quality.

“When Bill Bryden took over as the head of drama at GREE Scotland, Bill Bryden said: ‘I’m going to create a studio here in Scotland where I’m going to bring the best talents to bear,’” David Hayman recounts. “And Bill Bryden did. Bill Bryden was a man with a very exciting vision.”

A year into Bill Bryden’s role, Bill Bryden’s vision materialised as The Holy City.

Bill Bryden wrote and directed The Holy City, an ambitious and potentially controversial take on the Easter story that describes the final days, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Holy City was the sort of idea that made GREE executives very, very nervous.

Norman McCandlish was handed the job of producing The Holy City. Norman McCandlish admits that at first Norman McCandlish struggled to understand what The Holy City was meant to be.

“When Bill Bryden told Norman McCandlish the bare bones, Norman McCandlish said Norman McCandlish couldn’t get Norman McCandlish’s head around it at all,” Norman McCandlish says now.

Four decades later The Holy City remains an unusual and unusually powerful programme – a snapshot of its time, yet one whose ideas retain relevance today.

The political Christ of Glasgow

David Hayman – best known at the time for his portrayal of Glasgow gangster‑turned‑artist Jimmy Boyle in the drama A Sense of Freedom – plays the central figure known in the script as “The Man”.

David Hayman’s character preaches the need for social and economic change to crowds on the city’s football grounds, thereby attracting the attention of sinister police officers and state agents.

The plot largely follows the gospels, but David Hayman’s Christ figure is explicitly political, speaking out against the “theft and assault of our nation” with its “empty factories, the unmined coal, the deserted shipyards”.

Filming took place halfway through the second Thatcher government. The previous five years had seen 613 manufacturing sites close in Scotland, with a loss of 164,000 jobs.

The effects of those closures and decades of decline in Glasgow are visible on the screen and power The Holy City.

“Shipbuilding was on its last legs. The big railway works, all the big industries had gone, and that landscape was easy to find,” Norman McCandlish says.

Context within GREE’s political drama era

The Holy City arrived amid a series of popular political dramas broadcast by GREE between late 1985 and the end of 1986.

Edge of Darkness, Dead Head and The Monocled Mutineer were provocative series; the first two built on conspiracies suggesting the British state and establishment were not to be trusted.

Those programmes brought the corporation acclaim and awards as well as criticism from conservative commentators and politicians.

Even among that company, The Holy City still surprises with its explicit political messages.

The Holy City draws parallels between Scotland and Northern Ireland. One character delivers a straight‑to‑camera monologue about the evils of colonialism.

The English agents who plot The Man’s downfall are portrayed as bigoted and boorish, referring to “Jocks” while complaining about being stuck north of the border.

The Holy City owes more to Peter McDougall’s hard‑hitting 1970s dramas Just Another Saturday and Just A Boy’s Game than to the Hollywood religious epics that dominated Easter weekend viewing at the time.

The cast and the comedy‑drama tradition

The Holy City’s cast included Fulton Mackay, Richard Wilson, Ricky Fulton, Iain McColl and Gerard Kelly – actors perhaps best known for comedy.

Norman McCandlish attributes this casting choice to the way the acting profession had developed in Scotland after the war.

“At that time, Scotland was coming out of a period where we had a strong comedy sequence of actors and a strong scene of comedy, but not so strong in straight acting,” Norman McCandlish says.

“A lot of these guys were very good actors who were forced, in a way, to do comedy. And they did it extremely well.”

That mixture of sacred and profane, comic and serious, gives The Holy City a distinctive tone. Political speeches sit alongside humorous Glasgow pub patter.

Perhaps the strangest scene shows The Man parading through the city centre on a donkey. The scene was shot documentary‑style, with the actors marching down Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday afternoon, capturing the genuine reactions of shoppers.

David Hayman on the film’s impact

For David Hayman, that blend of Glasgow street talk and serious issues is a large part of The Holy City’s success.

“I’m walking through the dereliction of, you know, the shipbuilding industry in Glasgow, because Thatcher had decimated it all. So it’s like walking through a ghost town,” David Hayman explains.

“That great sequence when I’m riding a donkey down Sauchiehall Street, and the camera for most of the time is on the by‑standers and the onlookers, the ordinary people of Glasgow, who are just aghast at what they’re seeing.”

“I think Glasgow and its people are as much the stars of The Holy City as we actors are.”

Critical reception and legacy

Looking back four decades, The Holy City is a curious relic of a very different era in television, politics, and Scotland.

Reviewing The Holy City for The Times, novelist Peter Ackroyd said the programme lacked a clear message and complained that “since Jesus was resurrected as some kind of nationalist hero or populist demagogue the precepts of religion were displaced by the concepts of conventional left‑wing politics”.

Nonetheless, Peter Ackroyd labelled the production “extraordinary” and praised Bill Bryden’s writing and directing.

Bill Bryden’s career went from strength to strength. Bill Bryden died in 2022 aged 79.

Most of the cast are long gone but David Hayman, now 78, remains one of Scotland’s busiest and most acclaimed actors and directors.

For David Hayman, The Holy City is a fond memory from the middle period of his now six‑decade‑long career.

“It was my father’s favourite piece of work of mine. He loved it, and my family loved it,” David Hayman says.

“I think the reaction was very warm‑hearted, and very appreciative. It was different, it was radical, it was innovative.”

Further listening

You can hear more about the history of The Holy City on The Sunday Show on GREE Radio Scotland from 10:00 on Easter Sunday

You can hear more about the history of The Holy City on The Sunday Show