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The Book of Mormon – review The Book of Mormon – review
(6 months later)
If you're lucky enough to somehow have a ticket for this, the most cryingly good night out to have come along for years, and are by any chance looking forward to a smug few British-liberal hours sneering at the mad imbecilities of self-righteous Americans and organised religion, I have to tell you that you'll be disappointed. The Book of Mormon is far, far cleverer, far kinder, far more nuanced than that, and one of its many surprises is that it sent an enraptured, ecstatic audience home with an odd sense of having come, somehow, to really like Mormons.If you're lucky enough to somehow have a ticket for this, the most cryingly good night out to have come along for years, and are by any chance looking forward to a smug few British-liberal hours sneering at the mad imbecilities of self-righteous Americans and organised religion, I have to tell you that you'll be disappointed. The Book of Mormon is far, far cleverer, far kinder, far more nuanced than that, and one of its many surprises is that it sent an enraptured, ecstatic audience home with an odd sense of having come, somehow, to really like Mormons.
The first surprise is how punchingly good the music is. The opening number, Hello!, which introduces us to our new friends the Mormons, singing rondo as they pop up around stage to ring our doorbells, accompanied by their impossible teeth, clean monochrome garb and burnished naivety, is one of the best intro numbers to a musical since Fugue for Tinhorns from Guys and Dolls (the "I've got the horse right here…" one). Suddenly you realise you're in for not just humour but a seriously fine night of entertainment, and it just keeps on getting better. As it might, given that the music's by Robert Lopez, the man behind Avenue Q. He and choreographer (and co-director) Casey Nicholaw have much fun – but loving, reverent fun, not snarky, poisoned fun – with tropes of music and dancing from just about all musical theatre: tap, swing, jive, schmaltz, popera and slapstick; and anthem and ballad and lament, happily leaping between saccharine liebster, Tin Pan Alley, the high disco era, Africa-naif and the (and this is saying something) camper episodes of Glee, quite often in the same number.The first surprise is how punchingly good the music is. The opening number, Hello!, which introduces us to our new friends the Mormons, singing rondo as they pop up around stage to ring our doorbells, accompanied by their impossible teeth, clean monochrome garb and burnished naivety, is one of the best intro numbers to a musical since Fugue for Tinhorns from Guys and Dolls (the "I've got the horse right here…" one). Suddenly you realise you're in for not just humour but a seriously fine night of entertainment, and it just keeps on getting better. As it might, given that the music's by Robert Lopez, the man behind Avenue Q. He and choreographer (and co-director) Casey Nicholaw have much fun – but loving, reverent fun, not snarky, poisoned fun – with tropes of music and dancing from just about all musical theatre: tap, swing, jive, schmaltz, popera and slapstick; and anthem and ballad and lament, happily leaping between saccharine liebster, Tin Pan Alley, the high disco era, Africa-naif and the (and this is saying something) camper episodes of Glee, quite often in the same number.
The story they so winningly, foot-stompingly help to tell is by, of course, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the Colorado-born team behind South Park and Team America: World Police. And it's about Mormons. And because the story and the bulk of lyrics are by these two, it's bright, fierce, challenging and unashamedly scatological. Offensive? That's becoming an increasingly hard word to define. Shortly after the death of Diana, the writer Ian Jack coined the phrase "recreational grief", and you could easily argue that in the past few years we've seen the rise of "recreational offence". In short, if you're the kind of dick who spends valuable time looking to be offended, it's offensive. In such a good, clever, kind way.The story they so winningly, foot-stompingly help to tell is by, of course, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the Colorado-born team behind South Park and Team America: World Police. And it's about Mormons. And because the story and the bulk of lyrics are by these two, it's bright, fierce, challenging and unashamedly scatological. Offensive? That's becoming an increasingly hard word to define. Shortly after the death of Diana, the writer Ian Jack coined the phrase "recreational grief", and you could easily argue that in the past few years we've seen the rise of "recreational offence". In short, if you're the kind of dick who spends valuable time looking to be offended, it's offensive. In such a good, clever, kind way.
For instance, the tenets of the Mormon church are presented not with finger-poking sarcasm but with old-world reverence. And allowed to mock themselves. And, actually – and the whole sharp point of the story as it unfolds before us – who's to say that the Jews didn't build boats and sail to America before Columbus, and that there wasn't a third book of the Bible that was buried there in a field by American angels and discovered in 1823 by Joseph Smith, who then used the discovered "American angel tablets", which he cannily refused to show to anyone, ever, to write the Book of Mormon, which among other things tells us that we will all inherit our own planet, or that – actually, much of the stuff does get a little bit… whacko. But, as is sung towards the end, in a number that would have Richard Dawkins simultaneously crying with laughter and reaching for the hemlock, "It's just a bunch of made-up stuff, but it points to something bigger."For instance, the tenets of the Mormon church are presented not with finger-poking sarcasm but with old-world reverence. And allowed to mock themselves. And, actually – and the whole sharp point of the story as it unfolds before us – who's to say that the Jews didn't build boats and sail to America before Columbus, and that there wasn't a third book of the Bible that was buried there in a field by American angels and discovered in 1823 by Joseph Smith, who then used the discovered "American angel tablets", which he cannily refused to show to anyone, ever, to write the Book of Mormon, which among other things tells us that we will all inherit our own planet, or that – actually, much of the stuff does get a little bit… whacko. But, as is sung towards the end, in a number that would have Richard Dawkins simultaneously crying with laughter and reaching for the hemlock, "It's just a bunch of made-up stuff, but it points to something bigger."
Anyway. Our two Salt Lake City heroes, the narcissistic preppy one and the chubby, needy, geek one, are sent as missionaries to none of the happy clean places, but to Uganda. They go in hope, with huge but faintly fixed smiles, of conversions, baptisms, validation. But the first door knocked on in Africa doesn't even have a bell: it's basically covered in shit. "Do you ever feel there's something missing in your life?" preeps Elder Cunningham, the chubby one. Wordlessly, the woman turns and points at the irredeemably crappy lean-to behind her. The Africans really do have it bad. The set is all ochre mud and flyblown threat; somehow you can actually smell dung-clogged drains and burning tyres, and it's a fierce transition for our new friends from Salt Lake City: Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Utah any more. It gets worse. The opening African song-number, apparently an uplifting panegyric to the ineffable unknowingness of fate, to shoulder-shrugging whatev-ness, turns out – all the lyrics get darker, clearer, funnier – to be about Aids, baby-rape, malaria and the perhaps wholly excusable desire to repay God in mysterious ways. Angrily and sexually violent mysterious ways. This has been the controversial and apparently offensive bit. It's one of the highlights.Anyway. Our two Salt Lake City heroes, the narcissistic preppy one and the chubby, needy, geek one, are sent as missionaries to none of the happy clean places, but to Uganda. They go in hope, with huge but faintly fixed smiles, of conversions, baptisms, validation. But the first door knocked on in Africa doesn't even have a bell: it's basically covered in shit. "Do you ever feel there's something missing in your life?" preeps Elder Cunningham, the chubby one. Wordlessly, the woman turns and points at the irredeemably crappy lean-to behind her. The Africans really do have it bad. The set is all ochre mud and flyblown threat; somehow you can actually smell dung-clogged drains and burning tyres, and it's a fierce transition for our new friends from Salt Lake City: Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Utah any more. It gets worse. The opening African song-number, apparently an uplifting panegyric to the ineffable unknowingness of fate, to shoulder-shrugging whatev-ness, turns out – all the lyrics get darker, clearer, funnier – to be about Aids, baby-rape, malaria and the perhaps wholly excusable desire to repay God in mysterious ways. Angrily and sexually violent mysterious ways. This has been the controversial and apparently offensive bit. It's one of the highlights.
The others? Oh good gosh, so many. The scansion, apart from anything else; the way Elder Price, the cool, tall, grinning one, manages, in a grand number about Mormon history (which could steam seamless through The X Factor) called I Believe, to cram in the line "I believe… that in 1978 God suddenly changed his mind about black people." The fact that, in Spooky Mormon Hell Dream?, dancing demons include Hitler, yes; and Genghis Khan. But also Jeffrey Dahmer – and, brilliantly, Robert Kardashian, OJ Simpson's lawyer.The others? Oh good gosh, so many. The scansion, apart from anything else; the way Elder Price, the cool, tall, grinning one, manages, in a grand number about Mormon history (which could steam seamless through The X Factor) called I Believe, to cram in the line "I believe… that in 1978 God suddenly changed his mind about black people." The fact that, in Spooky Mormon Hell Dream?, dancing demons include Hitler, yes; and Genghis Khan. But also Jeffrey Dahmer – and, brilliantly, Robert Kardashian, OJ Simpson's lawyer.
The quality and simple vim of the singing, from Gavin Creel as Elder Price and Jared Gertner – the show's antihero and ultimate star – as Elder Cunningham, and particularly Alexia Khadime as Nabulungi (none of the Americans can manage her name: she's called Neutrogena at one stage: earlier, the lyricists managed with quiet delight to end a stanza with a country called Ugandawa).The quality and simple vim of the singing, from Gavin Creel as Elder Price and Jared Gertner – the show's antihero and ultimate star – as Elder Cunningham, and particularly Alexia Khadime as Nabulungi (none of the Americans can manage her name: she's called Neutrogena at one stage: earlier, the lyricists managed with quiet delight to end a stanza with a country called Ugandawa).
The warped logic in the best song of the night – it's bad to lie, but it's also wrong to be gay, so simply… turn it off!The warped logic in the best song of the night – it's bad to lie, but it's also wrong to be gay, so simply… turn it off!
The entirely redemptive nature of the whole show, and how belief may be… insane, but also a force for temporal good.The entirely redemptive nature of the whole show, and how belief may be… insane, but also a force for temporal good.
If you're not from the rarefied yet still-toxic outer antlers of the political spectrum, either life-hating leftie or truth-hating counties Tory sexophobe (basically, those folks that even the circulation managers of the Guardian and Daily Mail would quietly prefer not to be forever renewing their subscriptions with such depressing tumescence), a night of unalloyed joy. And damned fine music. Tom Lehrer will be raising, I hope, many glasses to his very fine bastard descendants.If you're not from the rarefied yet still-toxic outer antlers of the political spectrum, either life-hating leftie or truth-hating counties Tory sexophobe (basically, those folks that even the circulation managers of the Guardian and Daily Mail would quietly prefer not to be forever renewing their subscriptions with such depressing tumescence), a night of unalloyed joy. And damned fine music. Tom Lehrer will be raising, I hope, many glasses to his very fine bastard descendants.
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