The barber must hate it with a passion. For more than a year, half the villagers of Oberammergau grow their hair and the men their beards in preparation for a once-in-a-decade performance.

They have been waiting in the wings since 2000 to begin a marathon season of the world’s biggest production of the greatest story ever told.

Half a million pilgrims – including 55,000 Britons – are set to descend on the German village to watch perhaps the most elaborate re-telling of Jesus’s death and resurrection.

The Passion Play’s roots can be traced back to 1633, when villagers vowed to God they would perform the story every 10 years if they were spared death.

It is said no one was struck down after the pledge, so the Oberammergau Passion Play was first performed in 1634 and the epic, five-hour production has been running ever since.

Passion Plays were common in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, but Oberammergau’s is the only one to survive.

To have the right to tread the boards, participants must either be born in the village, in the Ammergau Alps region of Bavaria, or have lived there for at least 20 years.

More than 2,500 people – half the village – are involved in some way, including up to 1,000 people in the crowd scenes.

A year before curtain-up, the names of those who will play the main characters are chalked up on a board outside the theatre as they have been for centuries. This year, Jesus is a psychologist, Mary Magdalene an air stewardess and Herod a dentist.

I visited during rehearsals – running every day since November – and stayed at the Hotel Alte Post, whose owner plays High Priest Caiphus.

Quiet in the winter season, it is difficult to imagine thousands of people will soon pour into this snow-drifted Jerusalem and its impressive open-air theatre.

Backstage, Jesus’s cross and thorny crown sit alongside rows of costumes and Roman armour in preparation for the influx of visitors.

From the scenery to the outfits, everything is home-grown in Oberammergau. It has several music schools that nurture talent for the play’s choir and symphony orchestra in the nine years before a performance. But the village is also famous for woodcarvings and 3D-effect luftmalerei – literally air paintings – which adorn many properties.

And just an hour-and-a-half from Munich, there’s plenty more to do than watch the play.

Oberammergau is a short drive from 19th-century Linderhof Castle, the smallest but most opulent of King Ludwig II’s homes. It is also only 20 minutes from the ski resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen – home to next year’s Alpine World Ski Championships.

But most visitors come for the play, of which there will be more than 100 performances over five months from May 15.

One of two actors preparing to play Jesus is 30-year-old Frederik Mayet. He tells me his family have not been involved in the play for very long – only since 1890, he adds.

Astonishingly, many family names have appeared in the cast list for the past five centuries and some actors have performed for eight decades.

The Passion Play is a rite of passage for the villagers, who count the milestones in their lives by productions.

You don’t have to be passionate to live in Oberammergau, but it helps. So does hair.