There's a good initial reaction to this here which I think says most of what I felt.

To be fair, sitting down at 11 p.m to watch this, after a fantastic evening of our own, I was probably too exhausted to really appreciate it fully.

It felt to me that it tried to fit in too many songs, and that it was, as my university markers would say, overly dependent on Lennon and McCartney.  It was a tall order to get through the synthetic Luke-Matthew composite in an hour, not least as Mary and Joseph had to get the ferry across the Mersey, and these lovely little vessels don't hurry, so all credit to them for managing it.

I wasn't at all sure about Herodia as the villainess; though I thought it was pretty brave of them to include the slaughter of innocents aspects, something usually conspicuously absent from nativity plays/readings.  Maybe because the Bible has enough bad girls already, thank you, maybe because women of all faiths seem to struggle to be neither Madonna nor Jezebel.  Not sure, quite, just that it didn't cut it for me.  They could have had a woman as one of the Magi, if the intent was to have more female parts, or even a female publican.

I was struck, even through my late night stupor, by the strong political undertones, and admire the BBC for this.  Jesus as a revolutionary, questions of asylum and homelessness, politics and power.  This, for me, was a prophetic edge that I hope struck the thousands of people who saw, heard or took part in, the event.

For me, this one was less powerful than the Manchester passion, but it was a valiant effort and well worth the licence fee!