The Book of Mormon - Leeds Grand Theatre

Confession, I’ve never seen the show before, though I thought I mostly knew it as I’ve heard the bangers from the soundtrack often.

This lulled me into a false sense of security, as I wasn’t in any way shape or form prepared for the relentless assault on my funny bone - I checked with A&E last night and they cannot give me a sling whilst it heals. What is the NHS coming to!?

For the uninitiated, the story follows two mismatched young Mormon missionaries who are sent to a remote village in Uganda instead of the shiny Orlando posting one of them was dreaming of, or any of the ‘better’ places their colleagues get posted to.

Elder Price (Adam Bailey) is the golden boy desperate to do everything “right” while Elder Cunningham (Sam Glen) is an awkward geek who idolises Elder Price and cannot stop making things up. When their perky message of Mormon salvation crashes into the very real problems of the villagers poverty, disease and a violent warlord, Price has a full-on crisis of faith and leaves (for a bit). Cunningham stays and starts teaching a wildly reimagined version of Mormonism mashed up with sci fi (Star Wars) and fantasy plots (LOTR) which, unexpectedly, the villagers connect with.

Everything blows up when church leaders arrive and the truth starts to unravel but in the end the show lands on the idea that stories even very imperfect ones can still change lives.

I loved every side-splitting, foot-tapping minute of it!

STOP HERE - Spoilers and massively inappropriate show details ahead!

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On your head be it then…

The Book of Mormon is created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone the duo behind South Park, with the musical powerhouse Robert Lopez co-creator of Avenue Q and one of the songwriters behind Frozen.

Tonally this is definitely 99.9% South Park and 0.1% Frozen as we have jokes and songs about AIDS, female circumcision, race stereotypes, white saviours, religion (not just Mormonism), bestiality (I don’t care how cute the frog is!), and last but by no means least - paedophilia. And all of them are riffed on repeatedly as all good gags should be.

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If you are even remotely familiar with South Park then none of this will come as a huge surprise at all… not to say it isn’t still shocking, and I did see a couple of walkouts, but you quickly realise that nothing is taboo here (though my understanding is that some of the racial jokes from the initial run have been ‘updated’).

Of course this is from the South Park guys, so nothing is as obvious as it seems, every song, joke and line has a little more to say than just the surface offence it revels in. I think that is what largely stops this from punching down, particularly in terms of race depiction, though as a white straight male my opinion is probably superfluous here.

Onto the show itself.

The cast, and it is a large cast, are uniformly excellent, with Sam Glen as Elder Cunningham a real standout, and Will Barratt is hilarious channelling his inner Cartman as Jesus (plus other roles). Also loved Nyah Nish as Nabalungi - or the 100 other misnames Elder Cunningham calls her throughout the show, it’s very wrong, but well observed and super funny.

The production looks gorgeous too. This is a touring show that knows exactly how to fill a massive theatre like Leeds Grand without ever feeling cluttered. The design flips us from Salt Lake City sparkle to dusty Ugandan village to full blown musical theatre hell with ease, and every scene change hides at least one extra gag if you are paying attention. I loved the way that Spooky Mormon Hell looks very much like the one in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut even down to having Hitler appear (alongside Jeffrey Dahmer, Genghis Khan and Johnnie Cochran).

The staging is just as sharp. Casey Nicholaw’s direction and choreography keep the stage buzzing with movement while still letting the jokes land, and the set gives the cast endless places to pop out, march through and generally misbehave. The backdrops, be it the village skyline, Salt Lake City, or Orlando keep reminding you that this is a proper big musical, not just a naughty cartoon brought to life. It all feels slick, playful and surprisingly grand, which fits the show perfectly.

I may have left it late to catch up with The Book of Mormon but it has rocketed into my top five musicals, and is easily the best I’ve seen this year.

Cast & Creatives

ELDER PRICE - ADAM BAILEY
ELDER CUNNINGHAM - SAM GLEN
ELDER MCKINLEY - TOM BALES
NABULUNGI - NYAH NISH
MAFALA HATIMBI - KIRK PATTERSON
JESUS / J SMITH / DAD / PRESIDENT - WILL BARRATT
GENERAL / SATAN - SACKIE OSAKONOR
ELDER MICHAELS - ALEX HAYDEN
ELDER THOMAS - HARRY SIMPSON
ELDER SMITH - DAN BURSTOW
ELDER YOUNG - DANIEL GEORGE-WRIGHT
ELDER DAVIS/CROSS - ZACHARY LOONIE
ELDER GRANT - BENJAMIN CAMERON
ELDER WHITE/DAHMER - JAKE REYNOLDS
ASMERET/GENGHIS - TOLU AYANBADEJO
KIMBAY/MRS BROWN - OLYMPIA CURRY
SADAKA/UHURA - SAVANNAH HALL
KALIMBA/HASA - SAVANNA JEFFREY
MIDDALA - AARON LEVI
DOCTOR - DANIEL GRIFFITH
GHALI - HAYDEN CABLE
MUTUMBO - KAYODE SALINA


CONDUCTOR - DANNY BELTON

CO-DIRECTOR, BOOK, MUSIC AND LYRICS - TREY PARKER
BOOK, MUSIC AND LYRICS - ROBERT LOPEZ
BOOK, MUSIC AND LYRICS - MATT STONE
CO-DIRECTOR AND CHOREOGRAPHER - CASEY NICHOLAW
SCENIC DESIGN - SCOTT PASK
COSTUME DESIGN - ANN ROTH
LIGHTING DESIGN - BRIAN MACDEVITT
SOUND DESIGN - BRIAN RONAN
MUSICAL SUPERVISOR - STEPHEN ORMEUS