M-Jae Cleopatra Isaac, Kevin Clay and Conner Peirson in The Book of Mormon at the Palace Theatre, Manchester and Touring. Picture: Paul Coltas
The Book of Mormon continues at the Palace Theatre, Manchester until 24 August 2019 before touring to the Sunderland Empire, with more venues to be announced.
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
The Mormons are here. We’ve been told they were coming for months, with adverts around the city generating huge excitement for a musical that has already won multiple awards and played to packed theatres in New York and London for years. Arriving for a lengthy run at the Palace Theatre as part of its first UK tour, could it possibly live up to the hype? After a triumphant opening night the answer is an emphatic yes.
Creators of South Park and Team America: World Police Trey Parker and Matt Stone teamed up with Robert Lopez (co-writer of musical Avenue Q and the rather more family-friendly Frozen) to write this smash hit satirical comedy that won nine Tony Awards and four Olivier Awards, including Best New Musical on both sides of the Atlantic.
The show has lost none of its initial shine and with production values equalling those in the West End, the result makes for a genuinely funny and gloriously entertaining night.
The Book of Mormon follows two young missionaries, Elder Price (the confident, smooth-talking golden boy) and Elder Cunningham (the gawky, bumbling one with an active imagination and a penchant for making things up).
Embarking upon a two-year mission to spread the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they are sent to a remote Ugandan village. Arriving full of hope and optimism with only The Lion King as a guide, they instead find extreme poverty and warlords running violently oppressive regimes.
Not perhaps the typical subject for a musical, but the music is bright, tuneful and unremittingly catchy. In the opening number, ‘Hello’, the missionaries practice their doorbell-ringing and greet the audience with huge grins and unwavering cheer. In the show’s standout song ‘Turn It Off’, a scene-stealing turn from Will Hawksworth as Elder McKinley sees him extolling the virtues of keeping unwanted feelings repressed via the medium of a dazzling tap routine.
The lyrics are witty, caustic and packed full of wisecracks and yet within the space of one line can pack a sharp punch. In ‘Sal Tlay Ka Siti’ villager Nabulungi dreams of a place “where flies don’t bite your eyeballs and human life has worth”. The anthemic ‘I Am Africa’ deconstructs the narrative of the ‘white saviour’ and as for the show’s most controversial song ‘Hasa Diga Eebowai’ – well, it certainly doesn’t mean ‘no worries for the rest of your days’.
The Book of Mormon pokes fun at racial and religious stereotyping and highlights the absurdity of blind faith based upon flimsy or even non-existent evidence. However Parker, Stone and Lopez do so in actually a rather gentle way. It is not for the easily offended, but for all of its swearing and crude jokes it is never mean-spirited or cruel; in fact it concludes that sometimes believing in the power of something can make a positive difference to the world.
Perhaps as testament to this, far from provoking protests, the Mormon church has consistently advertised in the programme and continue to do so here, pitching ‘you’ve seen the show, now read the book’.
It is also a very traditional musical in form and structure; with classic mismatched leads, a potential love interest, a dream ballet of sorts and even a particularly funny sequence that is in essence an audacious, filthy version of ‘The Small House of Uncle Thomas’ from The King and I.
The choreography from Casey Nicholaw pays homage to a range of classic musical styles and his sparkling routines are performed with total precision by the well-drilled ensemble.
Elders Price and Cunningham may be polar opposites but actors Kevin Clay and Conner Peirson are perfect leads; having both performed the roles extensively in America, they are completely in tune with one another. Vocally they are excellent throughout and bring the house down with their big solo numbers, ‘I Believe’ and ‘Man Up’. Having only recently graduated from Arts Ed, Nicole-Lily Baisden gives an assured performance as Nabalungi, infusing her with a charming spirit and heart.
Packed full of jokes in both the book and lyrics, if you like your humour dark, cheeky and irreverent then The Book of Mormon is likely to be the funniest two hours you will spend in a theatre this summer. This is a slick, polished and hugely entertaining production that looks completely at home in the Palace Theatre.
The Mormons are here and on this evidence they are very welcome to stay.
May Mellstrom
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