he Plays continued outdoors in the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey up until 1988. Occasionally an evening show had to be cancelled but the audiences were well used to packing umbrellas, blankets, flasks of tea and took the English summer well in their stride. Technicians grew used to wearing rain macs - and sun tan lotion - and the actors who played the part of Christ loved, or hated, the experience of standing for hours in the increasingly bitter Yorkshire weather as the sun faded behind St Olave’s Church and the peacocks screeched their personal farewell to the evening light.

But circumstances changed and in 1992, York City Council moved the Plays indoors to York Theatre Royal after abandoning plans to stage the Plays as a promenade production in the Museum Gardens. The production, which featured Robson Green as Christ and was directed by Ian Forrest, was very different to anything seen before. Some applauded the modern, mechanistic direction and music, others felt that the Plays had lost their romance. A second production, directed by John Doyle with local actor Rory Mulvihill, took place in 1996 and the debate raged on.