JB Priestley described Johnson Over Jordan as an adventure in theatre. Robert Johnson, a timid, meek man lived the most ordinary of lives - until he dies. Suddenly he is capitulated into the strangeness of his afterlife and begins a frightening, lurid and emotional journey. Past memories, secret desires and present regrets and longings mingle with the real, surreal and sublime, threatening to overwhelm him. Johnson Over Jordan is an ambitious, dreamlike piece of theatre and ultimately, a deeply moving account of a very ordinary man’s life. Jude Kelly’s production opened at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds on 28 August 2001.