The old religion met the new on the rain-lashed streets of York as the York Cycle of Mystery Plays rubbed shoulders with the counter attraction of Sunday shopping.

Here was the changing face of the Mystery Plays: 14th century street theatre, knitted woolly tights and medieval music on the one hand; summer sales, the smell of frying doughnuts and pumping pop on the other.

In Parliament Street, behind the Crucifixion scene as Howdenshire Live Arts enacted The Death Of Christ, there was another backdrop beyond the pageant wagon with its three crosses and bowed heads: a shop advert in bold letters that read "Double wammy - free print with selected frames". It was a scene of medieval and modern language standing side by side in York - and shoppers, tourists and theatre lovers standing side by side too, watching the moving centrepiece of Jane Oakshott's moveable feast of a performance.

What is more, for the first time in 400 years the Guilds of York, the commercial heartbeat of the city, were involved in the Mystery Plays.

In doing so, the very groups who first staged performances in Corpus Christi Day in the mid-14th century were restored to a central role - and how the Guilds responded, working in unison with long-established drama and church groups in a processional production of 11 plays, seven Jesus Christs and one donkey in which 500 people - actors, musicians, production staff, set builders and wagon-pulling teams - were involved.

Indeed this revived participation could not have been better illustrated than in the opening play enacting The Creation. The Plasterers' Play was appropriately "brought forth" by York Guild of Building in conjunction with the York College of Further and Higher Education, so linking past and present. The role of God went to Brian Wilson - and who better to be God than the master of the guild!

Yes, this sodden summer rained on the Mystery Plays' parade, but it was intermittent rather than incessant, the performances being accompanied by a rainbow of umbrellas as the decorated wagons rumbled through the streets from Dean's Park to King's Square, York Market, St Sampson's Square and Parliament Street.

This, however, was a gladdening day, for while the four-yearly Mystery Plays will probably never return to the Museum Gardens, they have found their true place on the streets once more. Roll on more pageant wagon productions.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.