Catch a theatre show at Wollongong Uniting Church for free

The Silver Tunnel is a dark comedy touching on life, death and suicide and is being dubbed by its producers as "a hell of a play in a holy place".

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It stars Ric Herbert and Tim Matthews, with the 50 minute performance hurtling from a graveyard to heaven, to hell and back, leaving the audience with a powerful universal message of the wonder and value of life.

Humanitarian and champion for the homeless, Reverend Bill Crews is responsible for the tour of the work - written and directed by Warwick Moss - after having it perform in his own church in Ashfield.

He said most people who come to enjoy the play don't live "nice middle class lives" and are frequenters of the theatre.

"To see a mixture of everyone in the theatre from billionaires to homeless people, and see [the play] connect with everybody was really moving for me," Reverend Crews said.

He wants to continue using the arts to help the world be a better place.

"The arts are the perfect way of telling stories about one people to another group of people," Reverend Crews said.

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The plot begins in Sydney's oldest graveyard with "Old Harry", chatting to some of the graves he's tendered to for 34 years - seven suicides from the First Fleet - but now he's digging an eighth grave.

Reverend Crews said some people who have seen the show commented they saw themselves in the characters, others "emptied their pockets" in donations, while he would love people to simply leave with "a sense of compassion for people who are different".

"A lot of people look on those that are disturbed or those that are homeless or out of work, they all get labelled as one thing," he said. "But behind the label is a person who bleeds blood just like everybody else, and I hope they go away with an awareness that the world's a bigger place than their own bubble."

The Silver Tunnel is at Wollongong Uniting Church on the Mall, March 4 - 5. It's free, but bookings are essential, through http://www.thesilvertunnel.org/

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