BOOK OF MORMON's critical drubbing in London

[Owen22]

Posted: 3/23/13 at 9:25am

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2013/mar/22/the-book-of-mormon-reviews

[greeny11]

Posted: 3/23/13 at 10:53am

I would hardly call it a drubbing - quite a few of the critics enjoyed at least some of it, and a few gave it 4 or 5 stars. It was never going to get the raves it got in New York, and the Daily Mail review was the most predictable review of the lot.

Despite the critics, the show took in over £2,000,000 in ticket sales yesterday (tweeted by Lyn Gardner of the Guardian), so even despite the mixed reviews, it's going to be in London for a while. Updated On: 3/23/13 at 10:53 AM

[After Eight]

Posted: 3/23/13 at 11:06am

I am SO glad that in Britain at least, there are critics who

A) Are not taken in by the hype machine, and who

B) have the maturity, taste, and sense of humor beyond those of junior high school adolescents.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 3/23/13 at 11:25am

Says the old queen with his nose so far up in the air, birds can shlt down it.

[Kad]

Posted: 3/23/13 at 11:28am

When critics sync with After Eight, they are enlightened free-thinkers. If not, they're part of some shadowy, theatre-ruining cabal.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 3/23/13 at 11:49am

And the positives:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/03/22/the-book-of-mormon-london-theatre-review_n_2905933.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/9946475/The-Book-of-Mormon-Prince-of-Wales-Theatre-review.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/theatre-review-the-book-of-mormon-merely-flirts-with-blasphemy-but-there-is-something-very-winning-about-it-8543751.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/theatre/the-book-of-mormon-prince-of-wales-theatre--theatre-review-8500171.html

http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/38343/the-book-of-mormon

http://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/the-book-of-mormon

[BWFan101]

Posted: 3/23/13 at 12:07pm

"have the maturity, taste, and sense of humor beyond those of junior high school adolescents"


Ah yes, Britain, home of Monty Python...talk about a sophisticated sense of humor!

[Princeton Returns]

Posted: 3/23/13 at 12:14pm

It got mixed to positive reviews which isnt bad at all. No show can live up to the hype and hysteria this shows created. Word of mouth seems to be the same

[HoldThatThought]

Posted: 3/23/13 at 12:19pm

"Despite the critics, the show took in over £2,000,000 in ticket sales yesterday (tweeted by Lyn Gardner of the Guardian), so even despite the mixed reviews, it's going to be in London for a while."

According to the Boston Globe, that broke a record in London.


breaks record

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 3/23/13 at 12:20pm

That's the AP, not the Boston Globe (but still).

[dramamama611]

Posted: 3/23/13 at 1:57pm

According to the article posted on BWW -- it broke records for one day sales in London AND B'way.

Guess critics don't matter as much across the pond, either.

[goldenboy]

Posted: 3/23/13 at 2:30pm

Ah what do the Brits know. Aren't they the one's who gave us taxation without representation? Let's see what the American Critics have in store for Matilda? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Stay tuned.

[Playbilly]

Posted: 3/23/13 at 3:02pm

Whenever a British snob talks about lowbrow American humor....Benny Hill.

Shuts them up.

[tazber]

Posted: 3/23/13 at 3:12pm

^^^^^^

As they would say in the 00's: "Oh snap!"

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 3/23/13 at 3:59pm

What is it with Americans and linking Brits and Benny Hill? i hear this so much. You realize that nobody here has really spoke about Benny Hill in many years, and many thought he was crap when he was around.

Mormon had a few mixed reviews (3 stars) one negative (from the right wing Daily Fail) and about 10 positives, it did more than fine

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 1:57am

If you find the Telegraph's review to be a positive, then I won't go on to read the remaining four positive reviews.

"The American actors Gavin Creel and Gared Gertner make a cracking double-act as the mismatched missionaries but The Book of Mormon strikes me as a decadent and self-indulgent musical, and its mixture of satire and syrup ultimately proves repellent."

Oh, well, now that Parker and Stone have arrived we can at last torch all our old Rodgers and Hammerstein media.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 7:48am

The Brits are just mad that Americans made another near-perfect musical while Cameron Mackintosh is only doing revivals of his own shows

[DeNada]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 8:13am

Oh, come on, the reviews aren't that bad. The Mail's one star is a badge of honour, and although the Times and the Guardian only gave it three they're not terrible reviews. I think pretty much everyone loved the actual production; it's the text that is causing problems.

There is perhaps something of a perception over here - not one cultivated by the show's marketing, which continues to reveal absolutely nothing about the show save what a hot ticket it is - that the show is supposed to be wickedly biting satire. It's not - it picks a fairly soft target, is relatively kind to it ("religion is ridiculous made-up rubbish! But maybe it gives people hope, so... yeah!"), and generally quite a jolly evening in the theatre once you get past the shock value of the taboo words.

I had a great time seeing it. But I think it's understandable why the British critics didn't all fawn over it.

It will be interesting to see:

i) How the US critics rate Matilda - arguably a show with a darker, spikier sense of humour than Mormon's cheeriness and silliness (but fewer swear words)
ii) How the UK critics rate Once - a show with a creative team from all over the world that will no doubt be seen as a "British" show

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 8:16am

I dont know that I would call it "near perfect", sorry. I enjoyed MORMON, but it made me feel I was watching an old Yale University "original", just with a bigger budget. The score's grown on me, but there are still moments that feel like "Hey, let's be shocking just for the sheer hell of it!", which makes parts of it about as "perfect" as watching a Paris HIlton interview.

[Patash]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 9:10am

I honestly don't think it's at all that the London critics are more "intelligent" or more "free thinking" than the American ones.

What it mainly is, is that invariably they are sitting there saying "those silly Americans are loving this show. It can't possibly be that good".

Don't forget these are the same critics who thought Legally Blond was one of the best things since sliced bread!

But I'm always amused at those who feel that because it a show is "merely" entertaining that it doesn't warrant critical acclaim as well. When did a musical meant to simply entertain become a "bad" thing?

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 9:21am

Don't forget these are the same critics who thought Legally Blond was one of the best things since sliced bread!

First of all, no they didn't. Second, they liked the show because they saw a better production than what played on Broadway.

What it mainly is, is that invariably they are sitting there saying "those silly Americans are loving this show. It can't possibly be that good".

The funny thing is, a couple of the negative reviews point out that the audience is absolutely loving the show, making the critic sound even more like a wet blanket for being so above it all.

[AvenueQResident]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 10:18am

Critical drubbing? A single one-star review and a few mixed, outweighed by a majority of positives is equivalent to a Critical drubbing?

Please.

[Patash]

Posted: 3/26/13 at 12:26pm

"The funny thing is, a couple of the negative reviews point out that the audience is absolutely loving the show, making the critic sound even more like a wet blanket for being so above it all."

It's nothing new to take the approach, "the common folks think it's wonderful, but I have much better, more refined, and selective taste than they do." I rarely have seen critics worry about being a "wet blanket" for being "above it all. In fact, many thrive on that approach.

[Scripps2]

Posted: 3/30/13 at 4:31pm

The joke may have quickly worn thin for me with The Producers, Avenue Q, Spamalot and The Drowsy Chaperone but I thought Book of Mormon was excellent. I loved its scathing contempt for religious hypocrisy and the way it neatly skewered do-gooders who are really only in pursuit of their own self-interest and end up doing harm to others rather than good in that pursuit. Ostensibly this was about Mormonism but it could equally apply to the Roman Catholic hypocrite we have just seen in Scotland, the funeral-picketing Christian church in the US and the Christian fundamentalist churches in Uganda who were influencing the government there to introduce the death penalty for gay men in 2009. As such, I reject the criticism from some parts of the British media that the authors chose an easy target. To produce such an effective piece of writing they had to know well of what they wrote. Had they chosen a different subject, eg Islam, which I would guess they have no first hand exposure to, they could not have so effectively lacerated the peddling of a religious crapfest in the way that this brilliant musical undoubtedly does.

It was definitely shocking, offensive and non-PC but I’m not convinced it was racist, as asserted by Libby Purves in her review in The Times and from a few other sources. For a start it clearly mocks racism and cultural imperialism in the Mormon church (and by default in other expansionist organisations and institutions). Superficially it may be seen to be stereotyping but when Nabulungi sings of Salt Lake City being a place where “they have vitamin injections by the case” and “there’s a Red Cross on every corner” the show is actually mocking the West’s own ignorance and indifference towards the international gridlock that makes national governments puppets of global financial institutions and that only allows the “developing world” to progress at a pace that best suits the masters of gridlock. Far from being a glib comedy for teenagers and twentysumfinks this musical is an anguished cry of pain at social injustice, ignorance and self-righteousness. Behind all the gross-out humour are barbed lines aimed at exposing this: Elder Cunningham’s is berated for “making things up again” and “taking the holy word and adding fiction” by his own father and a Mormon Founding Father who both conveniently ignore the fact that the whole Mormon thing is a made-up piece of fiction – a blatant fraud designed to create and perpetuate a powerbase for some nineteenth-century, supercilious twat. And I could cite many more examples from the show. To focus on the gross-out humour and the portrayal of the Africans alone is to miss the point of the show.

And this is a far better musical than Jerry Springer: The Opera, the latter hiding behind the excuses in its title and its programme notes. BoM even pays its own little tribute to this show with Spooky Mormon Hell Dream being an almost direct lift in sound, tone and style. There’s plenty of other musical cross references as well, with Sal Tlay Ka Siti being a great Broadway ballad of longing to sit alongside Somewhere That’s Green, Nothing, West End Avenue and Disneyland, to name just four that immediately spring to mind. And I can spot at least four other Broadway musicals referenced in four other BoM songs - is BoM taking the rise or paying homage to them? The latter I suspect, the clue being in the words of the authors who have explicitly stated this isn’t intended to be a cynical show (thereby putting a little bit of clear blue water between this and the very cynical JS:tO). Perhaps the one weakness of BoM is that it conjures a conveniently neat, smiley, happy, clappy ending with everyone’s metaphorical hair still in place and their teeth and socks still white, whereas JS:tO rode mercilessly like the four horsemen into the apocalypse. Actually, a second weakness as well; some of the score (particularly the opening number) is a bit ho-hum.

None the less, I'd see it again tomorrow.




Updated On: 3/30/13 at 04:31 PM

[whatever2]

Posted: 3/30/13 at 4:44pm

I kind of wonder whether part of the tepid critical response across the pond is cultural; religion in general, and this "uniquely American" religion in particular, doesn't have quite the same public mindshare (qualitatively or quantitatively) in the UK that it does here.