York may not stage its Mystery Plays again until at least 2010. Mike Laycock visits another historic northern city where the Plays are being produced this week and asks: If they can do it, why can't we?

AS Christ was being crucified, the rain swept across the illuminated lawns in front of the cathedral, soaking Jesus, the Roman soldiers and the crowds who had come to jeer.

It was a sombre and moving scene in an atmospheric setting.

It was also wet work for the scores of actors involved. But not for the near sell-out audience of 600 people. We were able to watch from the dry comfort of a covered grandstand. And at the end of the performance, we rose to our feet and gave a standing ovation.

Welcome to the glorious Chester Mystery Plays 2003, launched this week and staged on the city's Cathedral Green.

Following our own city's failure to put on the York Mystery Plays next year, as should have happened under long-established tradition, I visited the north's other great historic city to discover how it has managed to safeguard its own traditions, and also to assess what benefits Chester is enjoying as a consequence.

The organisers' success in keeping the audience dry despite the rain is one significant factor. York's Plays were for many years staged in the ruins of St Mary's Abbey in the Museum Gardens. It was an atmospheric setting on a beautiful summer's evening, but one which could also leave the audience, sitting in the unprotected stand, soaked through when the weather turned wicked. Such problems were one of the factors in the Plays' eventual departure from the gardens.

Chester's covered stand, able to hold up to 680 people, cost £26,000 to hire, and the total budget for this year's production comes to about £200,000, said Jo Sykes, who plays a crucial role in the event. The money comes from corporate sponsorship, funding from Chester City Council and Cheshire County Council and box office receipts. Jo hopes that sufficient tickets will be sold for the Plays to at least break even.

The Chester Plays are staged by a limited charitable company which has existed since 1985 and has a board of about 23 people, including Jo, who is deputy chairman. Other members include the Dean of Chester, the city's Lord Mayor, a retired bank manager, a judge, and various others including teachers, housewives and solicitors.

A much smaller steering committee takes detailed charge of financial matters, while a production committee, chaired by Jo, is responsible for everything else.

All these people are volunteers, but several paid appointments are made in the long run-up to each production, including an artistic director and an administrator. Unlike York, where Christ has in many years been played by professionals including Simon Ward, Robson Green and Christopher Timothy, all the actors in Chester are amateurs, drawn from the city and surrounding area.

A total of about 150 adults and 100 children appear on stage, with an additional 250 volunteers involved in other work, including back-stage and front-of-house, making this a huge effort which brings together the community.

Jason Shepherd, 33, who plays a Fire Demon, says this is one aspect of the Plays which he has really appreciated. "It's been really good," he said. "Being part of such a community project is great."

Bearded Michael Hetherington, 38, who comes from Wallasey and plays Jesus with a remarkable resemblance to traditional images of Christ, agrees. "It's been great - very hard work but brilliant."

But the benefits of the Mystery Plays extend to more than just the am-dram enthusiasts and local people who appreciate the spectacle. There are also almost incalculable benefits to the tourism industry, which is worth an estimated £320 million a year to Chester.

The benefits may be incalculable at the moment, but Chester City Council's tourism development officer Gerald Tattum hopes a detailed assessment can be carried out after the Plays, to work out just how many extra pounds were spent in the city's hotels, bed and breakfasts, shops, restaurants and cafes as a consequence.

He says the fact that the Plays are split this year into two parts - with The Prophecy one night, broadly Old Testament, and the Fulfilment the next, featuring scenes from the New Testament - should boost income, encouraging people to stay two nights at hotels to see both instalments, rather than coming as day-trippers and then perhaps heading straight home after seeing a performance.

But he already knows people are coming to Chester from all over the world just to see the Plays. "People are coming from across the region, and from across Britain and from the USA, Japan and Australia," he says. There are also spin-off benefits from media coverage by arts and travel writers, who tend to extol Chester's other virtues after being hooked by the Plays.

"We have been working hard on press and public relations," he said. "We hosted a launch of the Plays about six weeks ago - the reading of the Banns for the Plays, and invited the press from across the region and Britain. We had about 12 travel writers who came.

"That number of travel writers coming here is worth tens of thousands of pounds."

That is the sort of coverage York would have received next year had the Plays been going ahead.

And the question that bugged me on my late-night return journey to York was this: if Chester can do it, why can't York?

Surely the people of this city - the councillors, business and religious leaders, actors and ordinary citizens - still have enough drive and ambition, time and money, and sheer civic pride, to ensure that the loss of York's great Mystery Plays heritage is not permanent, and to resurrect it in 2005? Haven't they?

Chester Mystery Plays run until July 19. The box office can be contacted on 01244 320700

Updated: 11:50 Thursday, July 03, 2003