From Heath Street Baptist Church a new storytelling show, David: The Story of the Shepherd King

Theme tune and incidental music by John Henry Baker.

Including ‘David’s Lamentation’ sung by the London Sacred Harp Choir.

With special thanks to Ewan King, Fiona Ranford and James Clow.

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Storyteller Wilf Merttens’ retells the legendary centrepiece of the books of Samuel for the 3rd millennium, and finds out it is just as full of shock, longing and ambiguity as it was in the beginning.

The epic of David is a story of the thorny, addictive, dangerous idea of Kingship. The prophet Samuel is reluctant to let the ‘time of the judges’ end, but his misgivings are up against the people’s hope that monarchy will bring them victory against their more organised enemies. Is God’s apparent support of the institution just a concession to the Israelites? Or is a king somehow an indispensable part of the divine plan?

When a shepherd-child, who knows nothing more than watching the flock and playing the pipe, is marked out as King of all Israel by Samuel, the twelve tribes are soon plunged into civil war. Will David keep his head when all about him lose theirs? David has the heart to be a poet, and the bravery to be a warrior, but does he lack the acumen of an effective leader? And is politics any place at all for his intensely felt faith in the living God?

Wilf Merttens is a writer and storyteller, and children’s worker at Heath Street Baptist Church.