Dominik Diamond, journalist and once co-presenter of Channel 4′s Gamesmaster, could be crucified on television this autumn in a bid to restore his faith in God. A documentary, made by Ginger TV for Five, called Crucify Me is to chart Diamond’s journey to find his “spiritual identity”.

Diamond had a Catholic upbringing and describes himself as having been “a committed Christian” but he gave up on all religion five years ago after “a combination of public and private events made me question my beliefs.” He aims to travel from his native Scotland via Italy to the Philippines, where a group of Christians (unsanctioned by the local church) celebrate Easter by re-enacting the crucifixion of Christ. Each year, three worshippers are chosen to be nailed to makeshift crosses in the town of San Fernando in front of watching crowds.

He said: “I’m hopeful that this journey will help resolve my crisis of faith. I’ve been making a living in the media now for 15 years, I’m in my mid-thirties and I’ve got three kids. It’s about time I did something that didn’t involve cheap gags.”

Right. No cheap gags in a synopsis that promises the possibility of his being “nailed to a cross in a painful and bloody Filipino ritual”.

Just in case you’re doubtful of the authenticity of the ritual:

The reenactment of Jesus’ crucifixion was started by a Filipino faith healer back in the 1950’s. The Catholic Church has always highly disapproved of the event, but to no avail. Since the early 1980’s, the town leaders have actively promoted the event as a major yearly tourist attraction. Indeed even at 8:30 in the morning, and three hours before the crucifixions were to begin, the main part of the village was quickly filling up with camera toting foreigners and Filipinos trooping under umbrellas. At the entrance to the village, a large banner hung over the cement road that read; “Tourists and Friends, Welcome to Barangay(village) San Pedro, Cutud.” Strung up behind the banner were plastic streamers advertising Tang orange juice. [Source]

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Focusing on just the responsibilities of Diamond now, my questions tumble like so: can you really genuinely search for and document personal faith’s evolution and refinement in front of the hot whir of focussing cameras? Can responding to the spiritual tug of humainty actually be profound when you’re being paid to do so and watched by an audience?

It certainly worked out that way for some of the contestants in the BBC’s recent and excellent docu-reality show, The Monastery, but the difference there was that the participants were just narrative furniture to the programme. Not being presenters they did not have to hold the experience together (the voice over/ edit team did that) nor be conscious of a documentary-style start, middle and ending to their on camera journey. Plus it was a shared experiential burden in a location (Worth Abbey) dedicated to quiet contemplation of the spiritual.

However, here, Diamond alone hold the keys to the show and, as he explores his own spirituality, will certainly have at least part of the mechanics of good programme making weighing in his mind. After all, if the resultant edited material isn’t cohesive or insightful, or entertaining or, indeed, profound enough then his future work prospects could suffer: that’s a lot of pressure you’re putting on yourself to undergo a religious experience on air. Plus of course, the finale is already planned – and it’s a setting, location and ritual about as far from the non-commercial wonder of Worth Abbey as one could conceive.

But what confuses me most about the gameplan here is the implied assumption that being crucified is the ultimate ritual to pass your mind and spirit into a full understanding of faith and the central tenets of Christianity. The Romans crucified thousands upon thousands of people and I very much doubt it was a profound religious experience for the vast majority of them.

The means and mode or Christ’s crucifixion isn’t nearly as important as the ensuing resurrection in the Easter narrative. So, the premise of Crucify Me has less to do with genuine faith finding and more to do with filming an obscure Christian sect undertaking a pretty crazy ritual into which they will hopefully include a speccy British geek who we can all enjoy seeing flagellated . A crucifixion scene is a great promise for the finale of a series that probably otherwise wouldn’t get much attention; especially as now it broadens the target demographic to include those who might take professional delight in seeing overweight videogame journalists nailed to pieces of wood.

But still, in the back of our minds when we read the press release and when, come the autumn, we watch the trailer adverts showing Diamond moments away from the nails tearing through his flesh, we know that this isn’t a true, without ulterior motive, experience of the searching soul. It’s predetermined, the element of will-he-won’t-he inserted to pique our interest in following what should be a deeply personal and, likely, quite unwatchable story otherwise.

But, as they say, God moves in mysterious ways and these conniving plans might just lead to some sort of a genuine spiritual revelation outplayed on television. That there is the essential grain of unpredictability for any successful documentary: that miniscule opening into which the genuine and passionate and authentic might burst humanely through the predetermined constructions of dispassionate TV programmers. Whether people tune in for that slight possibility or the far greater likelihood of seeing Dominik Diamond pierced for his transgressions is fairly easy to judge.