AS I entered and exited Bristol Hippodrome, there was an eerie feeling of the ghost of the clergyman who organised a protest when Gracie Fields, on a visit to Bristol, closed her show with a version of The Lords Prayer. What he would have made of Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone’s irreligious satire musical based on a fictional history and look at the present day missionary work of The Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter-day Saints, I dread to think.
One thing is certain. There would have been a strong picket line around the Hippodrome before and after every performance of The Book of Morman. Not that it would have served much purpose, because the large, slightly ill-disciplined audience gathering to see this show were quite happy to accept the satirical humour at the expense of the Mormons, historical figures like Joseph Smith, Brigham Young – and Jesus Christ. They were equally content to accept portraits of rural north Ugandan villagers as being as ill-informed and backward in knowledge as they were when Africa was described as the Dark Continent.
Forgetting any prejudices if you (and this audience certainly could) look at this show, wrapped up in a dazzling production, purely as an evening’s entertainment – with a few serious moral issues thrown in for good measure – it achieves virtually all its aims.
Parker, Lopez and Stone, not only produced a book and lyrics that are full of subtle and belly laughs, but a score that fits each changing mood of the storyline ideally. There are traces of Parker and Stone’s award-winning animated TV series South Park in the way in which co-directors Parker and Casey Nicholaw, who is also the choreographer, use the cast vocally and dramatically to often create an effective stylised picture.
Vocally the blinkered Mormon Elders, with Daniel George Wright, Sam Glen and Tom Bales as the yearning for the glamour of Orlando, Elder Price, the loveable, easy-with-the-truth Elder Cunningham and sexually ambiguous Elder McKinley, just had the edge over the far more colourful villagers, Nyah Nish, gentle but big personality as the trusting Nabulungi, her father Mafala, Kirk Patterson, who has long given up the fight against corruption and war lords, in this case the wonderfully flamboyant Sackie Osakonor, as frightening as he was funny, who still believes that all women should be circumcised and all men subjugated to his mad will.
Like the jibes at religion and authority, the serious themes interwoven into this script are wrapped up in a glossy presentation where the production values visually and musically are high, ensuring that, as long as you leave your prejudices outside the front door, this is a very enjoyable theatrical experience.
GRP