The Book of Mormon review: South Park creators' gentle mayhem in London

Here's my review of The Book of Mormon for the Morning Star Thursday 25th April 2013.

The Book of Mormon may not represent the much-heralded death of satire but, with full-page ads taken out in the show programme by lampooned subjects The Lion King and the Mormon church itself, this effervescent musical inches us ever closer to the abyss.

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are equal opportunity offenders, transferring their gleeful lack of respect for everyone and everything to Broadway and the west end with the help of co-writer Robert Lopez.

Race, gender, colour, creed and the do-gooding leftism they so despise: if you are an identifiable type, you will be done over by these libertarian scamps. Show them a sacred cow and they'll skewer it and serve it back to you with BBQ sauce.

These caveats in mind, if this is the sort of thing you like then you will like this thing very much. If not, look away now.

Odd-couple Elders Price and Cunningham (ace Broadway imports Gavin Creel and Jared Gertner) are paired up to save souls in Uganda as soon as their Salt Lake City training as "latter-day saints" is completed. They're assigned to a miserable village under threat from local warlord General Butt Fucking Naked (basso-profundo voiced Chris Jarman) whose mission is to subject all women to clitoridectomies.

Demolishing a slew of clichés straight out of the charity handbook, everyone has AIDS; one character shags babies; and the doctor is forever singing, "I have maggots in my scrotum" when the chorus isn't belting out, "Hasa Diga Eebowai" (Fuck You God).

The dispirited Mormon posse of clean-cut all-American fabulously repressed gays share the "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream", inhabited by Jeffrey Dahmer, Saddam Hussein, Genghis Khan and Johnnie Cochran: "I got O J free".

Elder Cunningham inadvertently twists Mormon history out of shape from its patently absurd mythical beginnings — shades of South Park's most excellent Scientology take-down with Tom Cruise "in the closet" — and finally wins over the villagers. They agree to be baptised after staging an outrageous parody of the show-within-a-show scene in The King and I, including a monstrously priapic Jesus.

Goal achieved, the Mormon proselytisers celebrate with a cheery rendition of "I Am Africa" hilariously satirising imperialist wet-dreams of the benevolent kind.

The all-singing all-dancing cast kick up a storm. More than half the actors are black, as is the leading lady love interest, the multi-talented Alexia Khadime.

Puerile, offensive and rude, The Book of Mormon acts as a welcome reboot of faculties numbed by moralising authoritarian edicts substituting for political solutions. What's not to like?

Prince of Wales Theatre, London W1
Runs until January 11th 2014

The King & I review: go you Orientals!

Daniel Dae Kim and David Yip

Hah! Here's one show you can't accuse of yellowface. Last night's Rodgers & Hammerstein 1951 musical The King & I, revived at the Royal Albert Hall, had so many Asian actors they must have emptied out every Chinatown in Britain. About thirteen kids and 20 or so women swamped the handful of white actors on the stage in something out of Margaret Thatcher's worst nightmare. How I laughed.

The latest King in a list that includes Yul Brynner, Jason Scott Lee and Chow Yun Fat, Daniel Dae Kim cuts a handsome dash as the barefoot monarch of 19th century Siam who'll do anything to avoid a charge of "barbarian", even importing an English governess, Anna Leonowens, played by Maria Friedman, who will tutor his (many) children and civilise the brute. (Hmm, do I really need to elucidate?)

As a Buffy and Angel fan I was keen to see DDK, who will always be evil lawyer Gavin Park of Wolfram & Hart to me. I'm pleased to see he's also notched up an impressive TV CV with Lost, CSI, Charmed, 24, The Shield, NYPD Blue, ER, Seinfeld (??? I don't remember him in that), Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise (oh well, there had to be at least one turkey) prominent.

Charismatic and handsome DDK may be, but a singing voice isn't his strong suit. Mind you, neither was Brynner's and the role cemented his career. Still, the other actors were phenomenal in this department. The two young lovers, Yanle Zhong as the rebellious Princess Tuptim (a gift to the King from Burma), and Ethen Le Phong, as her secret lover, Lun Tha, had powerful lungs and a sensitive delivery typical of the glory days of the stage musical. Their duet, We Kiss In A Shadow, had me quite teary and masking my snuffles as my current bronchitis.

My friend, David Yip (The Chinese Detective) as the King's Minister, didn't have to sing or dance but marched around as the power behind the throne, sounding most urbane and looking very professorial in his spectacles. I am so glad he didn't have to do "sinister" in this role.

The coup de theatre of the evening was the hilarious and spectacular show-within-a-show, The Small House of Uncle Thomas, staged by Princess Tuptim as a pointed indictment of the King and his insistence on mastery over the lives of his slaves despite his ambitions to be a "civilised" man and appease the British who are considering replacing him with their own puppet ruler.

The dancing, singing and choreography were a joy. Even my Lovely Companion, a rock 'n' roll/blues/trashkulchur fiend who complained that this was the worst thing I'd done to him since making him sit through Ivan The Terrible, Parts 1 AND 2, conceded that this visually lavish section was a delightful entertainment. I especially liked Uncle Tom, Little Eva and Topsy prancing Thai-fashion in white face. Heh!

The orientalism of The King & I is so transparent that I hope we know by now what we're looking at. The notion that the British project was to bring civilisation, a superior culture and democracy to "primitive" societies has been so thoroughly debunked, not least by the debacle of Iraq, that I hope we can all laugh at the show's assumptions. Cruelty, we now know, is not the unique attribute of that psychological landscape we know as the "Orient". British and US forces are as adept at this as was any eastern despot in history.

Suspend your critical faculties rather than bury them, and you will have a lovely evening. Personally, I found it to be a lot more honest that the execrable More Light, a modern regurgitation of orientalist stereotypes with a huge dollop of pretension and dumbed-down feminist politics without the excuse that it was written more than half a century ago. The King & I is a breath of fresh air by comparison.

Runs until Sunday 28th June 2009

Cast list:
Daniel Dae Kim, Maria Friedman, Jee Hyun Lim, Ethan Le Phong, Yanle Zhong, David Yip, Michael Simkins, Stephen Scott, Mischa Goodman, Hugo Yamaguchi, Miwa Saeki, Aiko Kato, Karen Cadogan, Victoria Sahakian Rogers, Adam Wong, Azumi Ono

Directed by Jeremy Sams
Musical director Gareth Valentine
Choreography Susan Kikuchi
Set and costume design Robert Jones
Lighting design Andrew Bridge
Sound design Bobby Aitken
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Andy "Lorne" Hallett dies at 33

Angel's favourite demon has died. Andy Hallett wowed Buffyverse fans when he debuted in Angel Season Two as Lorne, the epically camp karaoke-bar-owning demon with the Broadway-musical voice.

We just loved what he did with his character, dahlings. Like James Marsters, who played Spike, Andy brought so much to a minor part that his role as The Host eventually expanded until he established himself as one of Team Angel in more than 70 episodes between 2000 and 2004, eventually winning the supreme accolade of being included in the opening titles and starring in his own story-lines.

Blessed with an amazing soulful voice himself, Lorne (Green, geddit?) was gifted with the ability to read your soul through your singing, leading to some exquisitely comic moments, such as when David Boreanaz as Angel sings what is probably the worst version of "Mandy" you evah heard. (Outtakes here.)

"You don't have to sing. A break for you, a break for me, and a break for Manilow."

"Almost anything that can manifest, in order to move in this dimension, can be killed. Kinda the down side to bein' here. That, and the so-called musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber."

"You know what I'm talking about. In this city, you better learn to get along 'cause L.A.'s got it all, the glamour and the grit, the big breaks and the heartaches, the sweet young lovers and the nasty ugly hairy fiends that suck out your brain through your face. It's all part of the big wacky variety show we call Los Angeles. You never know what's coming next. And let's admit it, folks, isn't that why we love it?"

Watching Lorne cringe while he sipped on his SeaBreeze as his sensitive lugholes were assaulted by an assortment of demons behind the Caritas Club mic on their evening off was a regular delight.

He died in Los Angeles on March 29, aged only 33, of congestive heart failure following a five-year battle with a heart condition. I don’t know how you got your jollies in real life, Andy, but I hope you had fun while it lasted. One of the sweetest and funniest demons ever to grace the World of Whedon. Rest in Peace, sugarbuns.

Andy "Lorne" Hallett dies at 33

Angel's favourite demon has died. Andy Hallett wowed Buffyverse fans when he debuted in Angel Season Two as Lorne, the epically camp karaoke-bar-owning demon with the Broadway-musical voice.

We just loved what he did with his character, dahlings. Like James Marsters, who played Spike, Andy brought so much to a minor part that his role as The Host eventually expanded until he established himself as one of Team Angel in more than 70 episodes between 2000 and 2004, eventually winning the supreme accolade of being included in the opening titles and starring in his own story-lines.

Blessed with an amazing soulful voice himself, Lorne (Green, geddit?) was gifted with the ability to read your soul through your singing, leading to some exquisitely comic moments, such as when David Boreanaz as Angel sings what is probably the worst version of "Mandy" you evah heard. (Outtakes here.)

"You don't have to sing. A break for you, a break for me, and a break for Manilow."

"Almost anything that can manifest, in order to move in this dimension, can be killed. Kinda the down side to bein' here. That, and the so-called musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber."

"You know what I'm talking about. In this city, you better learn to get along 'cause L.A.'s got it all, the glamour and the grit, the big breaks and the heartaches, the sweet young lovers and the nasty ugly hairy fiends that suck out your brain through your face. It's all part of the big wacky variety show we call Los Angeles. You never know what's coming next. And let's admit it, folks, isn't that why we love it?"

Watching Lorne cringe while he sipped on his SeaBreeze as his sensitive lugholes were assaulted by an assortment of demons behind the Caritas Club mic on their evening off was a regular delight.

He died in Los Angeles on March 29, aged only 33, of congestive heart failure following a five-year battle with a heart condition. I don’t know how you got your jollies in real life, Andy, but I hope you had fun while it lasted. One of the sweetest and funniest demons ever to grace the World of Whedon. Rest in Peace, sugarbuns.

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert reviews: homophobia bad, racist misogyny invisible

Okay! The London reviews for Priscilla, Queen of the Desert — The Musical are now in and the suspense is killing me like a pair of six-inch stilettoes stabbed into my cranium. Has anyone noticed the misogyny? Does anyone care that east asians are dissed in a way that would have the blogosphere yelling "homophobia" had it been gays who were the hate figures? Are frocks and Abba the new bread and circuses? Will the producers fuck for spangles?

Beginning with one reaction to the original Oz stage production, The Age euphemises the "genitally precocious mail-order bride".

Michael Billington on the London production in The Guardian dismisses the "synthetic spectacle" and misses the point: "... it is gaudy, garish and loud and seems to be as much about costumes as content."

Nicholas de Jong gushes over "this bitter-sweet, big-hit musical, that stands up for brave sexual outsiders" in the Evening Standard. Yeah. Right on, sistah! "... Priscilla offers a joyful antidote to a world of hatred and violence." Not if you're an East Asian woman, it doesn't.

Michael Coveney in The Independent says simply, "It sort of stinks."

Benedict Nightingale waxes blah in The Times

Charles Spencer in The Telegraph writes, "It makes Mamma Mia! seem like something by Chekhov." He says this approvingly. Given my recent experience with the National Theatre's Burnt By The Sun, I reckon he may have a point.

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert reviews: homophobia bad, racist misogyny invisible

Okay! The London reviews for Priscilla, Queen of the Desert — The Musical are now in and the suspense is killing me like a pair of six-inch stilettoes stabbed into my cranium. Has anyone noticed the misogyny? Does anyone care that east asians are dissed in a way that would have the blogosphere yelling "homophobia" had it been gays who were the hate figures? Are frocks and Abba the new bread and circuses? Will the producers fuck for spangles?

Beginning with one reaction to the original Oz stage production, The Age euphemises the "genitally precocious mail-order bride".

Michael Billington on the London production in The Guardian dismisses the "synthetic spectacle" and misses the point: "... it is gaudy, garish and loud and seems to be as much about costumes as content."

Nicholas de Jong gushes over "this bitter-sweet, big-hit musical, that stands up for brave sexual outsiders" in the Evening Standard. Yeah. Right on, sistah! "... Priscilla offers a joyful antidote to a world of hatred and violence." Not if you're an East Asian woman, it doesn't.

Michael Coveney in The Independent says simply, "It sort of stinks."

Benedict Nightingale waxes blah in The Times

Charles Spencer in The Telegraph writes, "It makes Mamma Mia! seem like something by Chekhov." He says this approvingly. Given my recent experience with the National Theatre's Burnt By The Sun, I reckon he may have a point.