Jesus: The Wasted Years
Old Red Lion Theatre
Jesus is a drunken teenager. Satan is a reformed character, who spends his time reading Barack Obama's book. Mary is a slapper. God is losing it, and, with his receptionist called Beverley, does an impressive Alan Sugar act. Such promising material promises an original show, but unfortunately falls at its feet.
The show's opening is hopeful, and suggests we are in for something unique, but jokes and routines become tired very quickly. The ongoing gag about the Princess of Wales being 'popular' in heaven is initially amusing, but gradually becomes overdone and in slightly poor taste. It soon becomes apparent that the cast, particularly Jesus (Robert Meakin), are playing for laughs, and slow down for their punch lines. This would be fine, indeed it would even be imperceptible, if they managed to provoke an audience reaction.
The studio theatre of The Old Red Lion brings the audience up close to the sometimes slightly uncomfortable action. Sex scenes between God and Mary are presented with an unavoidable immediacy. If such scenes were either funny or part of a larger statement, then such provocative material could be explained. However, it seems that encounters such as God having a fetish for sniffing women's underwear are presented only to see how far the boundaries of acceptability can be pushed, without doing anything with them.
What presents itself as a comedy does occasionally teeter on the edge of having something quite interesting and important to say. The notion of character reform is broached, when Satan is shown to be a benevolent mastermind, who provokes hatred in order to generate love for Jesus. The ideas of gaining our knowledge from experience, and adapting to fit in with the modern world are also present, but are unfortunately shied away from.
Had the material been compressed into a 20 minute sketch, the glimmers of comedy that do work would have been much more successful; Satan's ringtone, God mistaking Hitler for Charlie Chaplin, and his crying of 'oh me' when Mary gives him oral sex. But surrounded by lacklustre material, pointless songs and an odd and unnecessary strip show, what is genuinely funny is too deeply buried to get a proper laugh.
Helena S. Ramplay
Jesus: The Wasted Years runs until 13th June
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