Picture: Charlie Flint
JEEZUS! continues at Belly Button at Underbelly, Cowgate until 24 August 2025.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
It takes a little while to get going, but once it does, the audience is with this show all the way.
Set in Lima, Peru, it’s got South Park-style irreverence, simple and catchy songs and great things to say about growing up Catholic as a fledgling gay boy about to take his first communion, terrified that his soul won’t be pure enough.
Sergio Antonio Maggiolo and Guido García Lueches – fiancés in real life (Sergio proposed onstage after an early Fringe performance) – throw themselves at this. Bold, energetic and fiercely queer, they wring every ounce of satire out of their subject matter. No one is safe from the barb of their wit.
Co-creator and director Laura Killeen ensures that there are tender moments too. Young Jesús’ mother is sweetly sympathetic. García Lueches plays everyone other than young Jesús. It’s beautifully physical too, often replicating the poses of famous religious iconography to add another layer of laughter.
They don’t shy away from the difficult stuff; awkward relationships with a homophobic father, or the sexual oppression of the church, but they use the language of this wonderfully blasphemous rom-com between Jesús and “actual Latino Jesus” to make their very relevant points.
Under the guise of rom-com silliness, they dismantle theology in search of truth and love. The Lord’s Prayer gets reinvented, and Jesus’ second coming takes on a whole new meaning.
Young Jesús proclaims: “If love is a mortal sin, let’s burn in hell.”
See you there boys!
Steven Wren
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