Reviewed by Mike Rimmer

Birmingham's Roger Jones began writing musicals in the 70s when alongside the development of CCM, Christian musicals were all the rage. The Witness and Come Together provided a new evangelistic form of communicating the message. Originally Jones wrote musicals for schools before broadening out into wider church ministry. Listening to 'Jesus Rode A Donkey', which is a collection of songs from his musicals, it's all well intentioned but artistically unsophisticated. There's an end of term Am Dram, traditional church family night feel about the whole thing. It may be possible to sit through these twee tunes as a live performance without eating your left foot in frustration as the live theatre may distract you from the naffness of some of these songs. On tape all you have is the songs with choruses of children wailing their way through this sickly schlock and it's painful. Whilst production values improve with the passing years, I'm not convinced that the quality of the musicals develop.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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