Now Barabbas is a play by the British writer

William Douglas Home William Douglas Home (3 June 1912 – 28 September 1992) was a British dramatist and politician. Early life Douglas-Home (he later dropped the hyphen from his surname) was the third son of Charles Douglas-Home, 13th Earl of Home, and Lady Lil ...

. Its original West End run at the

Vaudeville Theatre The Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on the Strand in the City of Westminster. Opening in 1870, the theatre staged mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. The theatre was rebuilt twice, although each new buildin ...

lasted for 130 performances from 7 March to 28 June 1947. It concerns a variety of inmates at a British prison, including new arrivals, old hands and a convicted murderer sentenced to hang. The original cast included Jill Bennett. The title refers to

Barabbas According to the New Testament, Barabbas () was a Jewish bandit and rabble-rouser who was imprisoned by the Judaea (Roman province), Roman occupation in Jerusalem, only to be chosen over Jesus by a crowd to be pardoned by Roman governor Pontius ...

the robber of biblical tradition.

Film adaptation

In 1949 the play was made into a film ''

Now Barabbas ''Now Barabbas'', also known as ''Now Barabbas Was a Robber'', is a 1949 British drama film directed by Gordon Parry and starring Richard Greene, Cedric Hardwicke and Kathleen Harrison. It was written by Anatole de Grunwald based on the 1947 ...

'' starring

Richard Greene Richard Marius Joseph Greene (25 August 1918 – 1 June 1985) was a noted English film and television actor. A matinée idol who appeared in more than 40 films, he was perhaps best known for the lead role in the long-running British TV series ...

Cedric Hardwicke Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke (19 February 1893 – 6 August 1964) was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned over 50 years. His theatre work included notable performances in productions of the plays of Shakespeare and Shaw, and hi ...

Kenneth More Kenneth Gilbert More (20 September 1914 – 12 July 1982) was an English actor. Initially achieving fame in the comedy ''Genevieve (film), Genevieve'' (1953), he appeared in many roles as a carefree, happy-go-lucky gent. Films from this period ...

and

Richard Burton Richard Burton (; born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr.; 10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. Noted for his mellifluous baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s and gave a memor ...

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References

Bibliography

* Wearing, J.P. ''The London Stage 1940-1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel''. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. 1947 plays British plays adapted into films {{1940s-play-stub